


Love Endless (Trail To Transcendence)

by wubwubnparmaham



Series: Love Endless [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 1970s, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Blood Drinking, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Post-Apocalypse, Psychological Torture, Reincarnation, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Vampire Harry, Vampire Liam, Vampire Louis, Vampire Niall Horan, Vampire Zayn, Violence, angsty angst, annnngst, elements of non-con, for the humans, i wish i could tag angst a thousand more times, kind of, new world order, slight aspects of horror, you get it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2018-11-02 20:56:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 251,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10952577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wubwubnparmaham/pseuds/wubwubnparmaham
Summary: It just doesn't fucking stop, does it?[Book 3/4]





	1. Anticus Fanticus

**Author's Note:**

> Hi.

Like your dreams. Like your happiest, most fulfilling and _visceral_ dreams—the ones where nothing goes wrong and all the peace in the world is had with the use of a simple smile. If you're a vampire, that was a mere piece of the feelings associated with blood-drinking, and the cataclysmic gift of vitality you received upon intake. It contrasted to the dregs of immortality like yin and yang, showing you each time just how dead you really were. The revival almost never felt real; a beating heart and warm skin felt wholly apart from you in those first few moments, submerged under the unseen but coarse fabric of reality. The two existential halves you dwelled in at once—that ever-present line that cut you straight down the middle: _Life and death_.

Those lucky enough to have life all the time would never understand what it was like to lose it. To lose everything that ties you to nature; to time, and the species you once were. Not that Erakus regrets his turning, nor does he resent his Grandfather for bringing it upon him without warrant, but sometimes vampirism can be more of the ‘curse’ itself, rather than the cure to the age-old curse of inevitable death. There were times when immortality was one of the worst disadvantages you could possibly have.

And sun sickness is a great example of that.

Erakus had been having one those good-ending dreams when he was interrupted by the taste of blood on his tongue. Delicious as it might have been, he wasn't yet present enough to swallow. The voices around him were muffled as though his eardrums had undergone a close-countered blast of explosives, but with a little strenuous effort, he began to make out the language of their words.

“What’s his name?” he heard spoken from that faraway place that echoed like an empty mansion, a twinge of panic laced heavily in the British inflection.

_Are they talking about me?_

“Bollocks, uh...Era—Erakus!” a deeper voice replied, a flurry of kicked-up leaves playing a melody like a reed instrument.

“Erakus? Oi, Erakus, can you hear me?...He’s not taking my blood!” the first voice called in concern, followed by the feeling of heated skin pressed up against his lips.

_How long has this been happening to me?_

“Here, tilt his head back,” the second urged, grabbing Erakus under the neck and lifting upward so the blood in question hit the back of his throat.

“Nngh,” Erakus heard himself groan as the substance finally shot through his system, causing the blood-giver to yip in joy at the had success. As the waves of clarity settled in, Erakus suddenly felt the forest floor he was flattened on. He heard the urgent voices all around him, and the words that began to mold into them. Something bad had happened but he didn't know what. In a flash, he dropped his fangs and dug into the wrist under his nose, gulping down the blood that was released and swimming his bleary way to the surface of cognizance. He cracked his sore eyes open and focused his blurred vision on a face crumpled in ecstasy a few inches above his own. _What the hell is going on?_

He turned his neck and took the wrist with him, grasping it firmly in his leaden hand so he wouldn’t tear the flesh, and looked around at the scene he’d come into. Humans and vampires he’d met at Liam’s surrounded the ill immortals on the ground, of which he was one, and the recent past shot him like a bullet. _Auron. The Elders. Harry. Louis! Fucking shit fuck!_

He yanked his fangs out and shoved the human aside in an unceremonious manner, but he couldn’t care. “Harry?” he croaked, scrambling into a sitting position and scanning their numbers for any missing parties. Harry and Louis were gone. So were Martin and Tanner. “Shit!” he barked, standing on wobbly legs to try and follow the hint of Auron’s scent through the English lands.

“No, you can’t!” a voice said, its owner gripping him strongly around the midsection and proving just in doing so that his interrupter was an immortal. “It’s too close to sunrise! We have to get you back,” he grunted, dragging Erakus back as he attempted to dig his heels into the dirt.

“Erakus…” Marley whispered weakly, doing his job as being the only one who could have grabbed his attention.  

“Marley, they’re gone!” Erakus said, falling to his knees and crawling over to his recently revived lover, his eyes searching him for injuries and flicking up when Zayn lurched forward and knocked his blood-giver over in the same way he had.

“Harry!” the Pakistani cried upon waking, frantically searching the group, again just as Erakus had, and widening his eyes to find the empty spots of their four missing members. He reached over and shook Niall awake as the same diligent human was gradually bringing him to consciousness, and the blonde sat up with a gasp.

“What's going on?” he whimpered as he looked around, meeting Erakus’s eyes and holding a hand over his mouth in horror.

“We have to regroup,” Liam said unexpectedly, panting as Johnny hung onto him like they were on the precarious ledge of one of New York City’s monster buildings, the human’s face painted with an expression of relief that almost made Erakus cry in envy. Their group wasn’t so lucky to have all their members safe and sound.

“Fuck regrouping! I’m going after them!” Erakus contested, working on pulling Marley to his feet so they could flee together.

“Where’s Harry and Louis? Martin? Tanner? Where did they go?” Niall sobbed when it all came back to him, every sunnily assaulted vampire now roused and unspeakably furious, or in Niall’s case, devastated.

“You know what happened, Niall. Auron took them,” Zayn growled, his fangs still dripping with blood because his anger hadn’t let them retract yet.

“Please, let’s return,” a vampire Erakus could have sworn was named Ezra said urgently, his fearful gaze darting to the eastern horizon every few seconds as the sky took on its early colour of dark, Oxford blue. “We can figure it out when we get back.”

“He has Tanner. What could he need Tanner for?” Marley groaned in exhaustion as he stood erect, credited to Erakus’s insistence, twisting his neck around in all directions and sniffing the air for the path their enemies took.

“I can’t tell either,” Liam admitted, the harsh dance of the wind masking a clear trail of their scents. It was both everywhere and nowhere all at once, and they didn’t stand a chance at finding their friends in the pitiful condition that ruled their bodies. Not to mention best the dangerous time of day.

“You expect us to just give up?” Niall squeaked in outrage, somehow displaying the most strength out of them all and shooting up to his feet with a grounded balance Erakus couldn’t yet summon himself.

“No—not give up,” Liam assured, the genuine concern on his face extinguishing a bit of the fire Niall had thrown at him because the blonde could tell that Liam genuinely cared. No one was okay with this.

“Guys, get on our backs. Quickly,” the vampire who was supposedly Ezra snapped passionately, spinning himself around and backing up into Erakus’s front, looking over his shoulder and pleading him with his eyes to just get on and stop fighting.

Any other time, Erakus probably would have cracked a witty joke about the suggestive position the immortal put himself in, but as it were, the only thing he could do was fall forward in reluctant acceptance, tears welling in his eyes as he let himself be carried away from the last place he’d seen his dearest friends—it felt like a loss just to leave. Like if they didn’t stay, they’d never have hope again. Returning to the house without them...it was admitting defeat.

His tattered group wrapped themselves around the backs of the offering vampires, and they were sprinting as a unit toward the town of Falmer faster than anyone could say “alright, let’s go.” Erakus shut his eyes for a good portion of the run because he didn’t want to see them running away, but the sniffling of Marley stole his resolve from him, and he whistled for him to lock eyes.

“We’re gonna get them back,” he promised to his Australian sweetheart, his golden-brown hair whipping around his forehead and only giving short glimpses of his defined eyebrows, permanently creased in a line of upset.

“We’re going to have to!” Niall voiced to Erakus’s left, turning the Sparrow’s head  sideways to his determined self. “Louis is my best friend! We’re going to find them no matter what!”

“And Harry’s mine,” Zayn seconded over the high-pitched whoosh of the air, gripping his helpful vampire’s shoulders so hard the boy winced and almost dropped him. “Sorry,” he said to him, patting the shoulders he’d dug his claws into and trying again without damaging the bystanders. “You know we’ll get them back. It doesn’t end here—it can’t,” he asserted, turning his troubled gaze forward to keep silently convincing himself of that fact.

 _It doesn’t end here,_ Erakus thought to try his confidence out, scoffing in annoyance because it wouldn’t stick with him as hard. It most certainly _did_ end back there in the clearing...but could they reverse it? Would their efforts be fruitful? And what would their ‘efforts’ even be? Where could they start?

The now depressing sight of Liam’s house eventually came into view and it only made Erakus’s turmoil worse, just as he'd thought it would. He sighed in sorrow as he was dashed into the living room and placed on the most comfortable couch he’d ever been seated atop in his life, one piece of his life back together when Marley was set right beside him and pressed up against his frame.

All the beaten and exhausted vampires were guided to the empty spots of the living room, and though sunrise was upon them, they certainly had a few things to discuss before more sleep (they’d just violently slept anyway).

“Johnny, I want you to go through my little spiral notebook by the telephone and call the Guardians. Let them know what’s happened, but be careful how you word it. We can only hope Beatrix was the only traitor, but I’m sad to say there could be more,” Liam requested, his human skittering off without even one question about how Liam wanted him to ‘word it carefully.’ Erakus liked him.

“Why didn't they just kill us when they had the chance?” Niall asked logically, his question making them all stop and think about it.

_Why indeed…_

“I think I know a little bit about Auron,” Zayn began thoughtfully, taking everything he'd seen and learned into consideration and laying his theory. “He seems the type to brew and dwell within the satisfaction of victories. He's also short-sighted, to say the least. Busy taking over the world and all he wants is his brother. Putting these two traits together, we either have a vampire who wanted us to feel the pain of his success, or a vampire who was too distracted by achieving his lifelong goal that he didn't stop to think how bad of an idea it was to let us live.”

“Was it?” Erakus snorted in dejection, looking up at his fellow members of unrelated family and discouraging them with a glare from embellishing their nonexistent advantages. “We don’t even know where they went. Auron is in control of the entire world. Why exactly was it a ‘bad idea’ for him to leave us behind unharmed? What the fuck are _we_ gonna do about it?” he reasoned, much to the instantaneous storm of Niall.

“Erakus, I’m gonna kick your ass!” the blonde roared, so worked up that Zayn had to physically hold him back from descending on the Sparrow immortal. “We don't need that kind of nihilism! You wanna crush all glints of hope, do it in your own fucking head. I prefer to start planning right fucking now, and if you refuse to help, get the fuck out of this room!” he bellowed, the uncharacteristic eruption nearly punching Erakus square in the jaw.

“...Well alright, so what do we do?” Erakus asked after a moment of silence, deciding not to leave the room after all. If they could think of something, Erakus would break the laws of reality to see it done.

“I...don't know,” Niall groaned helplessly, a sheepish pout pulling his lips downward.

“Baby, they're coming over when the sun sets,” Johnny said as he shuffled back into the living room, making his tired way to Liam and holding him close when the seated vampire coiled his arms around his hips.

“Thank you,” Liam said, checking his watch and cringing at the time. The sun was nearly here. “Anything else we can do right this second? Anything at all?” he asked, fighting his aversion to sunlight as his still pink-tinted eyes burned from keeping them open.

Erakus drove the road of his thoughts like he was in a racecar, each dead end making his mental tires squeal and drift in another direction. When it came down to it, the only logical idea that kept popping out of roadside ditches was the notion of calling for help, and he daresay in this scenario, they could use it. “I'll call Harlock and my parents,” he said, grunting as he pushed himself off the couch and helped the eager Marley to his feet as well. “I can't say they'll know what to do, but they're all smart as fuck and Harlock can daywalk,” he reasoned, limping to the kitchen as Liam nodded his head.

“Okay, great,” the leader of the house sighed; he had no conception of who these people were, but he trusted Harry’s friend's judgment. He trusted all of them.

Erakus and Marley helped each other into the kitchen, where the phone sat on the wall ready to assist, and Erakus hastily dialed Harlock’s number, cursing aloud and trying again when he remembered the need of the country code. Now finally ringing, the boys crowded the earpiece, staring into each other’s eyes as they waited for their home to answer. It was eleven at night for them, so there was no excuse to miss the call.

“Harlock,” the eyepatch immortal said briskly, his mood too somber for proper greetings.

“Erakus and Marley,” Erakus replied, fighting a smile at the deep breath of relief from his former landlord, if he can call him that.

“Boys! How’ve you been?” Harlock asked, shouting for Jenner as he always did so they could both contribute to the talk.

“Not good, mate. Louis, Harry, Martin, and Tanner have been taken,” Marley lamented, biting his lip anxiously when Harlock said nothing.

“Harlock?” they both heard Jenner ask carefully from a distance. “Harlock, what’s wrong? Who is it?”

“By whom?” Harlock demanded, already having a good idea but needing it verified.

“Whom what?” Jenner asked, still out of the loop and not sounding too pleased about it.

“Auron and a shitload of Elders. We couldn’t stop them. Got sun sickness from those stupid fucking flashlight things you were talking about and we’re still a bit out of it,” Erakus informed, looking the weary Marley up and down and realizing he probably looked just the same.

“Did I hear Auron?” Jenner asked, his voice a fair bit closer than before.

“Auron took them, Jen,” Harlock finally revealed, the Finnish and Aussie lovers glancing as one down to their feet, scuffling their shoes against the olden floor in what could be amounted to shame. This was either nobody’s fault or everybody’s fault, and they didn’t know which.

“Took who?” Jenner asked, his voice cracking on the second word.

“Harry, Louis, Martin, and Tanner,” Harlock said sadly, his warlock erupting in a sob that had Erakus holding the phone away from his sensitive ear.

“Erakus!” Jenner barked into the mouthpiece, unknowingly sending the phone even further away from Erakus’s face until he reeled it back.

“Yeah…”

“What happened!”

“Well what happened happened fast, I’ll tell you that much,” Erakus said to the whimpering warlock, summing the events up in his head to get them out in quick succession. “One of the Guardians over here was a traitor who worked for Auron. Set up some bullshit scheme about needing help, and halfway there we were ambushed. Sunlight was everywhere and we went down; this was almost five hours ago. Just woke up recently and those four are gone,” he recited, his head pounding from the sudden onset ache that rattled his skull.

“Where did they take them?” Harlock wondered aloud, hoping that one of his boys would have that answer, but the chances were slim and he knew that.

“We don’t know,” Marley confirmed, all four creatures sighing deep in their throats.

“We’re coming over; where are you?” Harlock asked passionately, ready for just about anything.

“Harlock, we’re in England. You can’t make it all the way over here,” Erakus denied, absentmindedly fixing the runaway strands of his black and elaborately coiffed hair so that he may actually be able to consider it a style.

“Well you’re fucking wrong about that,” Jenner contested, unseen as he hiked up the sleeves of his oversized jumper and crossed his arms. “Where in England?”

Erakus sighed in frustration and leaned against the kitchen wall, taking Marley under his free arm when he scooted forward. “In Falmer. It’s southern England, below London and that. Tiny little parish town,” he said, speaking quickly afterward to explain his plan. “I want you to get in contact with my family. I’m about to call them, and I want them with you. California is a shit-show, I’m sure, but I think they could really help you anyway,” he proposed, playing with Marley’s smooth hair and running his nose back and forth across his hairline.

“Don’t worry about that, just get some sleep. I’ll call the Sparrows right now, okay? We’re gonna...dunno, but we’re gonna find a way over there, I promise. Can you give me this number?” Harlock asked, Jenner slamming the drawers of the office desk as he dug for a notepad, even though Harlock’s memory would retain the string of numerals. Backup plan is always good.

Erakus called for Liam and repeated the number as it was given from the living room, wrapping up the conversation with a lot of ‘we’re gonna make it’ and ‘we’re gonna fix this’ promises. Erakus took them all with a grain of salt and hung up, leading Marley out by the forearm and letting his hand slide down to grasp his fingers. “Can we have a room?” he asked Liam, content that he hopped up immediately to show them to one.

The Elder led them up a case of carpeted stairs, the only carpet in sight, and they used the railing and wall respectively to draw themselves up, wincing every time a quad muscle needed to be flexed. So every single step. They trailed along an excessively photographed wall, meaning nearly every inch was covered in hung frames that showed off Liam and his closest friends, then stopped when they came to an extravagantly knobbed door.

Liam creaked it open and murmured soft words to the human inhabitants to ask them to sleep in Ezra’s room with him, and they complied without even a blip of protest, smiling at the visitors to offer the only support they could in the light of their group’s forced dismantling. After that, Liam gestured to the still warm bed and cocked his head to it, the motioned pair dragging their feet to the mattress and timbering down, struggling to kick their shoes off and reorganize themselves to lay down its length instead of width.

Liam asked if they needed anything else and they shook their heads, his tiny smile being his last parting gift before closing the door and leaving them to their thoughts.

Marley shifted around until he was facing Erakus, who lay on his back and stared blankly at the ceiling. “I can’t stop thinking about how lucky we are, and that’s a shitty thing to think,” he confessed, Erakus’s brows coming together in confusion as he turned his neck to gaze into Marley’s earthy brown eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked, rolling over to mirror Marley’s position, both in close and addictive proximity, subconsciously tangling their legs together rubbing the other’s feet with their own.

“I mean I know how horrible it sounds, because Tanner is out there somewhere with Martin, and Louis and Harry are God knows where, and bad shit might be—might be happening to them,” he stuttered with a choke, squeezing his eyes shut to block the tears and opening them once he'd kept the downfall at bay. “And all I keep thinking about is how glad I am that it’s not you,” he sniffed, promptly losing his battle with his watering eyes.

“Ohh,” Erakus cooed sweetly, his hand finding a home on Marley’s cheek while he thumbed at his pooling tears. “Baby...I know how you feel. I’ve been thinking the same thing…” he admitted, letting Marley do away with a fraction of his guilt.

“You have?” he peeped, covering Erakus’s hand with his own and brushing it down to gingerly hold onto the Sparrow’s wrist.

“Yeah,” Erakus laughed, like it was a ridiculous thing to assume he hadn’t been. “I think I really love you, Marley. I think I probably have for a while, but I wasn’t really thinking about it because we were always so busy...I mean we are now too, but something like this makes you think and...well I want you. I want to be with you... _just_ you...at this point forever,” he professed, sealing his lips over Marley’s and smiling against them when Marley did.

“Crikey,” Marley giggled as he pulled away, making Erakus snort because he’d always poked fun at his stereotypical use of Australian slang. “Back at Harlock’s, we were like little kids flirting on the playground. You treated me like shit because you liked me, and everyone would tell me it was only a matter of time. I didn’t know if that was necessarily true, but...yeah, I love you too,” he said brightly, soaking in their moment of pure joy when they found the other’s lips again, blocking everything else out the only way they could.

“Tell you what…” Erakus said between kisses, his hand sliding up Marley’s back under his shirt and making the boy shiver. “We’ve got about thirty minutes before we’re knocked out on our asses whether we like it or not...how’s about I go get us some blood from next door...and I make love to you until we pass the fuck out,” he proposed, having paused in his purrs to mark Marley’s neck with playful bites and grin as he moaned in interest.

“Well, that…” A short squeak when Erakus’s hand slipped into the front of his trousers, “...sounds like a…” Another throaty groan when Erakus dipped past his cock to lightly curl his fingers over his sack, “...aw, Christ, would you get going?” he chuckled eagerly, rolling Erakus off the bed and jabbing his finger at the door. “Get back here quick,” he said, flailing out of his clothes to save them the time.

“Oh, I will. Faster than you can say ‘shrimp on the barbie,’” Erakus snorted, darting out of the room and sprinting down the hall before the instantly hurled pillow hit him in the face. In no way were their kidnapped friends off their worried minds, but both lovers knew that the temporary distraction of sex would be wholefully encouraged were they here—especially by Harry.

 

~~~

 

Jenner couldn’t stop pacing. Even when Harlock took up a tempting spot on their couch—but _especially_ when Harlock told him to stop pacing. “Are you mad? Not even if I tried,” he bit, stomping up and down the living room with his hands clasped behind his back, his uncombed hair bouncing in his eyes with each anxious step.

They’d called the Sparrow family after hanging up with Erakus and Marley, and William had roared in fury to hear of not only his son’s overseas location, but the existential danger to the Elders whom he’d laid his life down to protect. He and Veronica had assured them that they (including William’s parents and their four other children) would take the mountain passes up to Idaho and be there in roughly an hour, assuming they didn’t get caught up fighting predators on the way. It was almost a given that some trouble would arise, but that family was strong and driven. They’d make it.

With nothing to do but wait, Jenner was close to implosion, explosion, combustion, take your pick. He had an excess of bottled-up tension in his veins, and he felt every emotion one could (excluding all of the positive ones) in unending waves of overwhelming insistence. Harlock was just sighing into his chest when Stacey slammed her door and rushed down to the second-story landing, leaping over with a sympathetic Jet behind her.

“When did you plan on telling me?” she demanded hotly, storming up to Harlock and resting her hands on her hips in her motherly scolding way.

“I was planning on it, Stace,” he assured, truthfully disappointed in himself for forgetting to mention it to her as soon as he’d disconnected with the Sparrows. Too much had been on his mind and he’d ambled straight for the couch, and now Stacey had heard through word of mouth what his conversation with Erakus had entailed, and she was furious.

“That’s my _son_ , Harlock,” Stacey reiterated tensely, Jet’s comforting rubs on her shoulders doing nothing to unwind them.

“I know! It’s Harry, Martin, and my Tanner too! And we’re going to get them,” Harlock vowed, his one eye swimming with that trustworthy glow that convinced everyone he met.

“Wonderful, I’m coming with you,” Stacey stated quickly, already strutting off to go pack a bag.

“No—no Stacey, wait!” Harlock said, scrambling off the couch and blocking the way up the stairs.

“Move, Harlock. Louis is my baby boy, and I’m going with you. Jet’s coming too. Do not fight me on this,” Stacey snapped, baring her fangs and hissing in the very back of her mouth.

“Just...hang on, just think about this,” Harlock pleaded, backing up the stairs because Stacey wasn’t stopping. “Louis wouldn’t want you getting yourself into danger! Just—” A short pause as he nearly tripped on a step above his current, “—just stay here; for Louis! He’d murder me if any harm came to—”

“Harlock Lawson! You will get out of my way right this instant or I will pound you into the ground. I don’t care how old you are, I’ll break your bones! I’m coming with you to save _my child_ , and that is final,” she snarled, her eyes glowing red in a sudden blood-craze due to her uncontrolled youth and passion.

“Harly, let her,” Jenner piped softly from the living room rug, Harlock’s eyes flicking to him as Stacey shoved past him and retreated to her room, an apologetic Jet grimacing to her Elder friend and hurrying after her.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Harlock challenged as he stepped heavily back down the stairs, returning to the quiet living room (everyone else who could inhabit it were sulking in their rooms) and finally pulling Jenner down to sit beside him.

“Well...she’s Jet’s number one priority now, and Jet is an incredible fighter. We’ve all seen what she can do over the years. You just worry about me, let Jet handle her,” he said, running his fingers through Harlock’s thick and wavy hair and kissing him on the eyepatch, one of his favourite places to give affection to because Harlock loved and appreciated the thought behind it.

“Louis would never approve—not in a million years,” Harlock groaned, his mind fearing that even after successfully rescuing Louis, he would still throw a hissy fit (that would turn into a tornado) over them endangering his Mother that he’d specifically placed in their care.

“Louis isn’t in the position to complain about that,” Jenner said sadly, hating to use that fact to his advantage because it was such a terrible truth, but it was the most reasonable argument against Harlock’s concerns. “We don’t know what it’s like to give birth to something. Stacey is probably feeling an emotion we can’t even conceptualize, and I think, in comparison to the danger she may face, it would be a fair amount worse to stop her from doing something her heart needs her to,” he said wisely, scooting down to lay his head on Harlock’s lap and gaze up at his pensive face.

“Right as always, my love,” Harlock said with a small smile of adoration, shaking Jenner’s matted ringlets and combing it out for him while they waited. They had two packed bags already due to Jenner’s instantaneous jump to action, and it wasn’t long until a packed Stacey and Jet came thundering down the stairs.

“We’re ready,” the Elder’s Mother declared, dropping her bag on the coffee table and tapping her Keds-shoed foot on the elaborate rug.

“Well we’re not. Not yet anyway; waiting on Erakus’s family to get here,” Harlock said, motioning for the two women to have a seat until the time came.

“Erakus?” Stacey questioned as she eased her way down into a loveseat joined quickly by Jet, the name ringing a bell but not enough to place.

“You only met him briefly. It was during the hand-off when we stayed here with you and Erakus and Marley left on the bus with them,” Harlock informed, a far-off look on Stacey’s face as she scraped trivial memories from the walls of her mind.

“Oh, the one in the flannel?” she suddenly recalled, another detail coming back like maybe an accent or something. New Zealand?

“No, that was Marley. The Aussie. Erakus is the one with the complicated black hair,” Harlock corrected, closing his eye and resting his forehead down in the crook of Jenner’s scarred neck.

“I remember him too!” Stacey said triumphantly, staring at the clock and getting thrust right back into the throes of impatience. “When will his family get here?”

“I’d say about thirty-ish minutes now, if all goes well,” Harlock mumbled, pressing kisses onto Jenner’s skin that had him squirming in cute little bursts.

“All goes well...you mean if they don’t get mauled by the psychos all over the world right now?” Stacey said, her limbs turning into jelly as she fell back against Jet.

“I’ve met them once, darling. They won’t get mauled,” Jet said into her love’s temple, nosing the spot and rubbing at the top of her dirty-blonde-haired head.

“When did you meet them?” Jenner asked, only so much room in his head to hold in every little thing like vampires generally could.

“Christmas of ‘59,” Jet responded, referring to the time a handful of Harlock’s, including the forgetful Jenner, had traveled down to Tahoe to meet the family Erakus had come from and spend the holiday season with them.

“Oh shit that’s right,” Jenner chuckled, a many fond recollections floating through his thoughts. That had been a wild bout of festivities. Alcohol and the Sparrows don’t mix well.

“What do we do once the family gets here?” Stacey asked to bring the focus back on her son, where she rightfully felt it belonged. “I mean how do we get across the country?” she asked, looking forward to getting a well thought-out response to that—which never came.

“That’s something we’ll have to figure out when they get here,” Harlock grumbled, admittedly more lost about the how than he’d ever been in his life. He’d never experienced a problem this complex and dire. The east coast was positively swimming with predators, and those enemies dotted the midwest and pacific northwest too. _And_ the north, the south, just bloody everywhere! They couldn’t just casually stroll across the nation of America, and a plane didn’t seem feasible right now with no pilots in their immediate circle.

“But we will get there…?” Stacey whined quizzically, stifling her small sob when Jet’s arms encircled her in that perpetually calming and mollifying way they always did.

“Yes,” Jet asserted unwaveringly, delicately placing her lips on Stacey’s and holding them there until Stacey let out an accepting sigh.

“Jet’s right, I don’t care what it takes,” Harlock seconded sternly, pelted with the loving and admiring look from Jenner upon his lap. “We’re gonna fucking save them or we’re gonna die trying.”

 

\---

 

“Wow, he really is a warlock,” one of Erakus’s sisters—though Jenner couldn't remember which—exclaimed, gazing openly at Jenner and walking in a circle around him.

“Now, now, Susanna, you mustn't stare,” Veronica chided, smiling at Jenner and greeting him with a familiar forearm shake because she'd seen him recently, whereas her two daughters who had been living in Canada for thirty years, had not. They'd both come down the moment the attacks had started, and a renewal of introductions seemed to be in order.

“Well it's fascinating!” Kaisa reasoned, giggling to herself in amazement. “I haven't seen you since Christmas of 1959 and you look exactly the same!”

“Right?” Susanna seconded, the two eternally teenaged girls flipping her long black hair back over the same shoulder. They looked remarkably identical, and Jenner was still surprised they weren’t twins.

“It’s nice to see you two again,” Jenner said politely, gesturing for them to have a seat in the living room. The Sparrows had quite literally just walked in through the front doors, and a barrage of greetings had taken place in an instant, Harlock rushing to welcome William, Veronica, and William’s parents, Lotta and Kyösti, while Elijah and Niko stood by and chatted with Stacey and Jet—Niko was a brother Jenner definitely remembered, whether or not he’d spoken much to him whilst in Tahoe. That drunken fight between Niko and Erakus just shy over a decade ago was exceptionally memorable.

“Alright!” Harlock called over the hubbub, steering the multiplied group into the living room and snapping at Jet to fetch chairs for everyone. They gave the eldest Sparrows the couch and took the collected chairs for themselves, scooting into their romantic pairs and laying out the facts.

“Erakus is in the United Kingdom?” Lotta asked first, her raspy voice slithering through the air in a surprisingly pleasant way.

“Yes, England,” Harlock specified, wincing under the glare that William pelted him with.

“Why didn’t we know our son had left the country?” he demanded, the sisters snorting into their hands and causing his glare to fall on them. “Something funny, girls?” he asked icily, his sons’ eyes widening in amusement.

“Well...we’re all adults, Daddy. We don’t need to tell you where we’re going all the time. We live in Canada, but we’ve spent plenty of time in Europe and Asia,” Kaisa said sweetly, turning off her Father’s anger like a lightswitch, as most daughters do.

“Sweethearts, that was before the world was a war zone,” he reasoned patiently, gesturing to Niko and Elijah to use them as an example. “Do you think Niko and Elijah would flee to Barbados right now without telling us? No. I’d have their heads. You girls came down from Canada as soon as possible. To be with your _family_ in these trying times, just like you should have. Do you see the difference?” he asked, Veronica rolling her eyes because her daughters playing their Papa like a fiddle was always something she couldn’t respect him for.

“Enough of this,” the Matriarch groaned, skewering both her husband and her daughters with a look of disapproval. “Darling, you can punish our son when we get to him, but right now we need to decide how we're going to do that in the first place. And we must do it quickly for Stacey here—Stacey was it?” she asked to make sure, continuing when the woman nodded her head. “Stacey is missing her son _entirely_. We must get to England because we must find Harry and Louis. And of course Harry’s butler, and his Tanner. _This_ is our first priority,” he stated, Lotta scratchily humming in agreement.

“Thank you,” Stacey said, sharing a smile with the fellow Mother who was also missing her child, just on a lower scale.

“Of course, my dear. If Erakus were truly missing, I would not rest until he was found. The pain is unbearable to imagine, and we're going to do everything in our power to bring them all back. Now, any ideas?” she asked the room, her eyes naturally falling on Harlock, who always seemed to have a plan.

“I wish everyone would stop asking that to _me_ ,” Harlock sighed, his eye fixated on the coffee table to run through the limited options a thousand times.

“Can we fly over?” Veronica asked, pursing her lips when she got small shakes of her head from all around.

“I know they flew over from New York, but it’s too dangerous for that now. We’d need to stop for fuel, and there’s no guarantee we would make it anyway,” Harlock said uneasily, disinclined to even entertain the idea of meeting peril at an airport on their way across the country. And to ask Liam’s people to put their lives in danger just to pick them up in the first place wasn’t something he was comfortable with.

A silence filled the air as everyone put their brightest thinking caps on, and an unexpected answer came from Grandfather Sparrow.

“If we can't go over...and we certainly can't go directly across...what we have left is under,” Kyösti mused cryptically, turning Harlock’s face to him with an expression that one would wear if they'd just smelled something foul.

“You're not…what exactly are you...” Harlock trailed, refusing to come to any conclusions until he was sure.

“The Anticus tunnels,” Kyösti said, the dead serious look on his face invoking a short burst of laughter to bubble out of Harlock’s throat.

“The what?” Jenner asked in confusion, glancing at Harlock’s face contorted with amusement before looking back to the elderly Finnish vampire. “What did you say?”

“The Antic—”

“Those are a farcical _myth_ , Kyösti. We need to focus on logic here,” Harlock brushed aside, prepared to dive into an elaborate scheme in which they would kidnap a bunch of still free humans and bind them in chains and march their way through the cities posed as predators on a mission when Kyösti pushed the idea again.

“I heard rumours,” the old man stressed in irritation, affronted that Harlock would shoot it down instantly without even giving it a serious thought.

“ _Of course_ you heard rumours! And that’s all they were! Listen, there _are no_ tunnels, I can assure you that. You were born in the mid-1800’s, Kyösti; I was born in 1073. Been around a lot longer than you and I’ve not seen _one shred_ of evidence to suggest those imaginative tunnels are real. Not a single one. It’s nothing more than a fantastic urban legend, entirely unproven, and not a delusion we need indulge ourselves in. I’d believe in the Yeti before I’d dip a toe into that ridiculous tunnel business,” Harlock huffed, crossing his arms and challenging the Grandfather to keep dwelling in fairy tales (but seriously hoping he wouldn’t).

“First off, I was born in 1779. I turned my family in exactly 1850. And be not so quick to judge, Harlock. I heard in 1925, from a very credible source, that there is an entrance near the base of the Rocky Mountains in western Montana, the Mount Wood summit to be exact. This individual disclosed that he went in search of the vastness of the Anticus; that he delved through the deepest chamber of the underlying mountain cave, and in a remote corner, hidden by great mound of sediment, lies a piece of evidence that suggests these tunnels exist...a staircase,” he said in a voice that one would use at a campfire to scare their fellow hikers with ghost tales. Though the tone was unintentional, for the baby vampires, it certainly had a hand in frightening their impressionable minds.

Harlock’s not so much. “ _A stair_ —are you _hearing_ yourself!” he shouted incredulously, wishing they could rewind time and somehow avoid this topic altogether.

“What. Are. _The tunnels_?” Jenner asked sternly, making it painfully obvious if he didn't get an answer soon, Harlock’s subsequent sex life would pay the price. See that was what Jenner did if he was substantially angered—withheld himself for as long as it took for Harlock to break down and apologize. Harlock had heard a many extensive things about Harry and Louis using hateful fucking to solve all their problems, but Jenner gave him the cold shoulder, and comparatively, that was just not fair.

“Alright,” Harlock relented before Jenner’s eyes narrowed any further, “the legend of the Anticus tunnels—which, by the way, the term ‘Anticus’ is a Latin root that pertains to the status of ancient—essentially boils down to the insinuation that mighty tunnels were dug by a handful of powerful vampires in the beginnings of human civilization. They are supposedly somewhere within the Earth’s crust or maybe below, somehow fortified strongly enough to withstand the weight of the rock above, and they _allegedly_ connect all the continents together, going right under the colossal mass of the oceans,” he sighed boredly, meeting the elderly-but-not-Elder vampires’ gazes and hoping that his outspoken depiction had illustrated just how preposterous the idea really was.

“I trust our source,” Lotta said confidently, tipping the scales in Harlock’s agitation and propelling him out of his seat.

“We’re not going on some wild goose chase to find tunnels that can’t possibly exist, and waste precious time we can’t ever reimburse! We can’t afford that kind of distraction. Harry and Louis, Martin and Tanner, they’re missing! Taken by the very enemies currently warping the world into a tragic wasteland, and you want to go _spelunking_?” he roared in disbelief, cut off when Jenner wrapped an aggressive hand around his upper arm and spun around his body to yell in his face.

“And you think sitting here and arguing about it is a better alternative? Is this not wasting time too? We’re going east anyway, Harlock, and a northern route is already our best bet. We could cut through Canada and hitch a ferry to England, I don’t know, _something_ , but we can’t go straight across or over. Why don’t we head to Montana and just see for ourselves? If we don’t find anything, we keep going...but if we _do_ , we take the tunnels,” Jenner proposed, smug about the overwhelming majority of sensible nods that framed him in Harlock’s fiery eye.

“Listen, suppose these tunnels exist,” Harlock compromised grudgingly, his stance on their unlikely credibility speaking for itself. “They would still be far too dangerous for you, Jenner. According to folklore, they don’t go _up_ —they just go _across_. Openings are scarce, which means airflow is scarce, and so far under the ground, we couldn’t just dig up a few feet to free gusts of oxygen to your needy human lungs. It might take us days to navigate even at top speed, and you could very well die,” he warned, still without any shred of belief that this would turn out to be a relevant concern in any case. “Not to mention your claustrophobia…”

“So loot oxygen tanks from a hospital or old folk’s home. Don’t worry about my claustrophobia, I’ll live. We’re going to Montana and that’s final,” the warlock said bravely, strutting up to the coffee table and slipping his arms through the straps of his fold-over pack, making eye contact with everyone else in a manner that said they were to follow his lead and join in the revolution.

“If my Grandfather says a source was trustworthy, then I believe him. Maybe you don’t know him, but he wouldn’t go around spouting bullshit if there wasn’t some truth behind it,” Niko said off to the side, Elijah and their sisters nodding along and grinning at their beloved Kyösti.

“I’m inclined to agree with them,” William added, maintaining a fierce gaze with Harlock and trying to assert they weren’t just cooky conspiracy theorists.

Harlock scoffed and held his forehead in his palms, thinking over the concept and finding almost no good reason why they should pursue it. “There _are_ no tunnels!” he insisted passionately, begging his audience to gain some sense.

“Then we’ll give you the opportunity of shouting the biggest ‘I told you so’ of all time to our humiliated faces when we find nothing. But if we need to go east anyway, there’s no harm in checking,” Stacey urged, grabbing her bag off the table as well and approaching Harlock without an inkling of fear for his reaction. She slapped him hard across the face, causing a unanimous jolt to shoot through everyone’s spines, and grabbed him by the chin, turning his dumbfounded face toward hers. “We’re either starting this journey now, or I’m walking out of here myself. To get my son back. Make your choice now,” she said, letting herself be led a few paces back from Harlock by the nervous Jet.

Nobody knew exactly what his response to that would be, but Jenner was smirking in the face of it—the verdict would come now. He waited patiently as Harlock put his mental ducks in a row, and when his shoulders drooped in defeat, the warlock knew what came next.

“Alright. Let’s go see about your _fucking tunnels_ ,” Harlock sneered, taking special time to glare at the Sparrow Grandfather for bringing this to his plate of strife. “Let’s waste the bloody time. But if we don’t find them in four hours after we get to the mountain, we move the fuck on, and _that’s_... _also_... _final_ ,” he stressed angrily to Jenner and Stacey just as they had, both of whom shrunk away with nods of acceptance.

“Deal. If we can’t find the opening in four hours, we’ll leave,” Jenner vowed, the entire party standing tall to their feet and gathering their lingering things to get ready for imminent departure, falling into individual conversation that Harlock worked hard to tune out.

“Harlock?” a tiny voice called from the hallway, the revealed Chinese boy wrapped in a sheet around his hips while his lover Matthew slanted against the archway in nothing but a pair of unbuttoned Levis, his sweaty hair wrangled into a messy bun atop his head.

“Yeah, Eden?” Harlock sighed—it wasn't as though he was displeased to see him, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't wound tightly at the moment.

“What's wrong with Harry and Louis?” he asked, Matthew thankfully picking his battles and stroking Eden’s bare arm with the backs of his knuckles in support, rather than snarl possessively and forbid his lover from speaking the names of his former immortal owners.

“We don't know, Eden. That's what we're gonna find out...and you know them, don't you? I'm sure they're just fine,” Harlock soothed, walking over and tussling Eden’s frazzled black hair.

“What's going on?” Josiah croaked, emerging from the hallway and stepping into Matthew’s arms, sighing against his chest and entwining his fingers with Eden’s free hand.

“Nothing, love. We're just leaving to go help out Harry and Louis; they're in a bit of trouble, but they're strong, and they probably won't even need us,” Harlock chuckled, putting his two hands on the humans’ shoulders. “You two stay safe, alright? Don't go outside. Stay close to Matthew at all times—he'll take care of you, okay?” he stressed, winking at Matthew when the vampire swelled with pride.

“I'd die to protect them,” Matthew professed, his two beautiful humans cooing and smashing themselves against him, his happy arms full of the two things that made his world turn.

“You be careful out there, okay?” Eden pleaded knowingly, lifting the sheet higher up his body and leaning all of his weight into his and Josiah’s dream come true. He still felt a bond to those Elders who had tugged on his heart so intensely, and though he was extremely happy in the relationship he'd always yearned for (Josiah was an unexpected bonus), he wouldn't ever hide his care for them in general. He would always love them too. “When you see those Elders, tell them I won't accept any other outcome than a safe return.”

“I'll see to that, baby doll,” Stacey strode up to say, throwing her arms around the human she'd picked off the floor of heartbreak and nurtured back to health, then pushing him straight into the vampire who had never stopped gawking at him since he'd first shown up.

“Bye, Momma,” Eden whined, blinking his tears away and hiding in Matthew’s neck after Stacey let go, shushed by his vampire and Josiah’s calming ministrations.

“Go back to ‘sleep,’ guys. I’m leaving The General in charge, so go to him for everything now,” he said, pushing the smiling trio back down the hall to their giant canopy of a love nest.

“You guys get our world back, yeah? No pressure,” Matthew snorted, guiding his little birds into their room and closing the door.

“General!” Harlock immediately shouted into the home, realizing he should probably announce his chain of command to the recipient he'd decided (his most esteemed fighter).

The General, in all his warrior glory, jogged into the living room and bowed in the master’s presence, the two exchanging parting words that he was to be gone for an indefinite period of time, and the house was to be left in The General’s dependable care. The General accepted the responsibility with passionate declarations, just as expected, and Harlock reeled him into his arms to say goodbye.

The group then made their way to the doors and opened them quickly, billowing out into the night air and turning their gazes eastward, sniffing at their surroundings to check for enemy scents. Once the path was seemingly empty of any such threats, Harlock scooped Jenner into his arms like a bride, kissing him on the nose and then rolling his eyes when he caught a glimpse of the warlock’s cheeky smirk over winning the debate.

“Does anyone know the way to Mount Wood?” Stacey asked, eager to leave with a supportive Jet at her left, rubbing her thumb against her shoulder bone and gearing to get into warrior-mode and keep a watchful eye on her the whole run.

“I know where the Rockies are, obviously. We can steal a map from one of those stupid little tourist trap places,” Harlock assured, heaving a heavy sigh and digging his feet into the dirt for a seamless take-off. “First stop is a hospital, and we should hit a gas station for extra water and food for Jenner. This is incredibly stupid, but if we _do_ find this tunnel shit, we’re gonna want provisions. For him,” he specified in case it wasn’t abundantly clear.

“Sorry for pissing you off,” the warlock whispered into his lover’s ear, the underlying ‘sorry you lost’ falling on perceptive ears.

“Sorry my ass. I’m just itching to prove you all wrong. I still say this is a waste of time,” Harlock said under his breath while his inferiors (in age) made their last second preparations to sprint across the state.

Harlock looked around at their determined faces, and he couldn’t help the smile that teased his lips at the sight of them—the unexpected formation of Kyösti, Lotta, William, Veronica, Elijah, Niko, Susanna, and Kaisa Sparrow, Stacey and Jet, and of course himself and Jenner making up the essential rescue party of the world’s most epic tale, here at the end of all things. What a bonkers bunch.

Harry and Louis would be proud, though; that he _knew_. Whether or not that approval stood for much, considering those two made some of the rashest decisions of all time, at least no one could ever tell them that their friends didn't try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not saying one fucking word.


	2. No Place For A Warlock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, my name is Jackson, and the death-threat offer is still on the table. I had no time or energy for pleasantries last time, so HIIII, been a while, how've you all been? I have some shit to say. Let me hence *clears throat*  
> This story, for those that are still with me after all this time, is not an easy-going tale, is it? Hardships have come, but none have been quite this dastardly. As for the things that are in the future. I realize that I'm going to piss a lot of people off with this story, and I knew that when I was writing it, but I also know that there are those of you who will love what I do. At least, love the pain of what I do. I'm not telling you when Louis and Harry are coming in, but don't worry, obviously they fucking are aha. I'm just not saying anything about it. This story has gotten so much bigger than just a Larry fic, I don't even think I can classify it into the One Direction fandom anymore. It took on a mind of its own, it's nuts, lol. Anywho, as of right now, I have like 105k of this done. I made the choice to start uploading now, and that very well may come back and bite me in the ass, but I decided to anyway, because fuck stress, I can handle it. Listen...all you need to know is that it's endgame Larry, as it always has been, and there's a happy ending. But I'm not lying when I say this book will make you feel like that ending isn't even possible. It is, alright? It is. They're gonna go through hell first, and if you get too frustrated with me, then leave. Aha, i don't wanna sound rude. But literally, just do that.  
> I changed the outline of this book about a thousand times because I realized I was catering to what people would want to read. Then I stopped to think about it, and went in the direction I knew this story was supposed to go in anyway. It's not a happy, joy-filled story, and hasn't really ever been since this mess started in chapter 3 of the sequel, and if you want fluff and boundless smiles, Love Endless just isn't for you anymore. For those that stick around, I say good luck and I love you. That is all.  
> Now! For THIS CHAPTER—  
> !!!!! CLAUSTROPHOBIA-INDUCING SCENE !!!!  
> That warning in the tags was put in there because of this particular chapter. If you are bothered by close spaces, lack of oxygen, and panic attacks, skim skim skim. The whole thing made me feel like I couldn't breathe while writing it, and i don't want to cause any throat tightenings, so just beware if that's something you already struggle with.  
> Alright, I'll shut up now. Just had to say hello and give a warning to the people who thought this was gonna be an easy ride. SURPRISE, IT'S NOT.

“Anything?” Elijah called from some odd fifty feet away, his voice bouncing off the mountainside and easily reaching all ears.

“No!” Jenner shouted back, answering for Harlock because he knew the vampire wouldn't, too focused on (and annoyed about) their task to find the secret entrance.

They'd ended up going further south because the location of Mount Wood was in the bottom left corner pocket of Montana, smack dab in the thick of the Rockies. It had been an interesting journey so far, the group looting three oxygen tanks—plus a little tube Jenner could fit over his nostrils and tuck behind his ears—from an empty hospital in Idaho. It had been notably unnerving to walk down an abandoned medical hallway with flickering fluorescents, and even more so petrifying to think they may get ambushed by predators, but they'd made it back out without a scratch.

Humans were practically nowhere in sight, and Jenner wondered what was happening to them. Evidently, they’d been rounded up to keep together in large areas, and supposedly that was being done with lures and compulsion, but he hadn’t detected any of those radars so far in their mountain travels. He could ruminate over this forever, and he figured he’d find out eventually what exactly was being planned for the human race—best to focus on their current duties for the meantime.

Along with the tanks, they'd broken into a vending machine in the hospital cafeteria and stuffed another bag full of shit snacks and water bottles, and hightailed it over to Montana, where they were now taking wide steps over precarious rocky slabs in search of their Anticus tunnel proof.

It had been an arduous twenty minutes so far, with every vampire using their top speed to clamber up and the mountain and using their eyes to catch every little detail. Jenner was doing what he could to help, but his human senses were unfortunately useless by comparison. Nevertheless, he walked wobbly over the rocks and refused help when Harlock offered it, only letting himself be carried to the next location when they’d confirmed no such openings would be found where they were.

They’d just zoomed to the right a ways when Elijah made an ominous announcement. Jenner’s grin split his face upon hearing it, but Harlock’s face spun toward the Sparrow’s location and his expression was a close cousin to what it had been when Stacey slapped him across the cheek.

“I think I found something!”

Regardless of Harlock’s rapid evolution of thoughts, he lifted Jenner in his arms and flashed to the left side of the mountain, joined by those were making their way around to check the claim out. They found Elijah by an immense boulder, on his hands and knees and shoving his face into the bottom corner, and it didn’t take long for everyone to arrive on the scene, all glancing at each other in varying scales of emotion.    

“What?” Harlock asked when Elijah didn’t immediately explain, setting Jenner down to approach the studious Sparrow.

“There’s a crack in this,” Elijah said, looking over his shoulder and beckoning Harlock down on the ground with him.

Harlock sighed but dropped to his knees, walking them over to his gestured spot and bending down with Elijah to stare at the bottom of the rock. And that’s when he saw it, obviously. Not a detail that was easy to pick up on, but the scent that was now clear wafting through the minuscule _gap_ between the boulder and the outer layer of the mountain spoke a lot for itself. He slid his fingers down through the crack and spread them out as much as he had room for, noting the slightly colder temperature that breezed over them. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he muttered, retracting his hand and snapping at the nearby vampires to help him and Elijah move the blockade.

Everyone sprung into action and got a good grip on the stone that was as long as they were tall, straining even their superior muscles to lift it from the Earth. Maybe Harry and Louis would be able to kick it over like the footrest of a couch, but they’d always been inexplicably powerful—that kind of lack in effort certainly wasn’t in these vampires’ caliber. Disadvantages aside, the stone broke free and they hoisted it above their heads, scooting their feet to move it away from its spot and drop it down (carefully) a few paces away.

Of course Harlock had looked down after they’d lifted it, but he waited until it was out of his hands before letting his reaction pour out of him. “What the fuck…” he muttered, all members of the group returning to the gaping hole they’d just uncovered. They inched forward and peered down into the unknown darkness of the mountain cave, and Kyösti’s knowing smirk cut Harlock like a knife.

“We...we have to go in there?” Kaisa asked, trying futilely to mask her uncommon fear.

“This is just a cave. I still don’t think this staircase exists,” Harlock made sure to say, refusing to count this as a loss because a hidden cave was far more believable than the hidden “tunnels” beneath it.

“Only one way to find out,” Stacey said, squinting her eyes down into the hole and trying to see further down than she actually could. “Why is it so dark?” she wondered, having never experienced problems seeing in the dark before.

“Our night-vision comes from the stars and the moon above,” Harlock informed, glancing up at the very moon in question and squeezing his eyes shut when its radiance started to hurt. “Even if clouds cover the sky, the light of them always shines through and illuminates the night for us. It can sort of break through the top of a house too, that’s why we can still see a bit in basements and such…” he noted, sounding reluctant to have to make the distinction between that and this.

“But this…?” Jenner pressed, sensing the negative change in Harlock’s tone regarding vision in the dark.

“This is going to be pure darkness. Nothing to reflect off anything. If you think it’s dark when you turn out the lights, well down there it’s _pitch black_ ,” Harlock admitted, groaning in the face of one of his senses getting compromised, like he’d already known it would if they found this fucking place. They’d brought a number of flashlights, some rags with a fuel can and short tree branches, and stolen two lucky flares from an ambulance, but if all that ran out, vision would be taken out of the equation.  

“We did bring stuff for that,” Stacey reminded, patting her backpack that held most of the fire and light sources.

“Yeah, but we have a finite amount of it,” Harlock said, his eyebrows creased as he peered down into the wide mouth of the cave. He kicked a stray rock over the edge and they all stayed completely silent for its descension, Harlock meticulously counting the seconds as it fell. _Zero...one...two...three...plop!_ “Bollocks,” he muttered, dropping his head down and snorting at their misfortune.

“What? How far down is it?” Stacey asked, no concept of how deep the rock’s landing alluded the cave of being.

“Well I didn't drop it straight down, but three and half seconds, that’s...120, 150?” Harlock guessed, an accurate reading in broad terms but certainly not specific.  

“ _Feet_?” Stacey gaped, glancing back down in the hole and shuddering.

“I have no visual grasp on how deep that is,” Kaisa said with a shrug, choosing not to worry unless someone told her to.

“Uh...bit shorter than your average sports stadium,” Jenner said confidently, backed by the nod from Harlock.

“Yeah, I’d say this is about three-fourths that height. Which won’t kill us going down, but it’ll be quite the fucking skip getting back out,” Harlock grumbled, that fact having been his main concern this whole time.

“If we find the tunnels, we won't have to,” Kyösti said under his breath, Harlock pointedly ignoring that statement.

“What if there’re stalagmites on the bottom?” Niko wondered nervously, all sorts of things coming to mind of why it could still be dangerous to jump down blindly.

“It’s too close to the surface for that,” Harlock assured with a shake of his head.

“Pointy rocks then,” Niko corrected, going down one notch on his long list of possibilities.

“Then we’ll get skewered,” Harlock bit emotionlessly, tired of having to babysit the fears and emotions of these adult vampires.

“So...who goes in first?” Jet asked to push them along, glancing around at everyone present except for Stacey because she didn’t want her to face that.

“The old man,” Harlock said with a jab at Kyösti, squaring off when William and his granddaughters audibly protested and rounded on him like they were going to try something. “What! This was _your_ stupid idea,” he growled at the elderly Sparrow over his defenders’ heads, directing the pointing finger to the cave. “Own up to your brilliant plan. Get the fuck down there.”

The Sparrows began to complain again but Kyösti silenced them, politely accepting the condition and planting a short peck on his wife Lotta’s lips. She didn’t look nearly as worried as the rest of her family, and simply looked down with raised eyebrows when her husband leapt down into the opening. The Sparrows crowded around the mouth and waited for a confirmation of survival, the younger ones biting their lips until they heard their Grandfather’s comforting voice.

“It’s very unpleasant down here…”

“Oh thank you,” Veronica said to the sky, obviously gracious to some God that Harlock couldn’t guess.

“Alright,” Harlock said, guiding Jenner away from the group to sit atop the stone they’d moved away from the opening and steal from private time with him before making the jump. “Jenner, I need you to listen to me right now,” he said seriously, earning the immediate focus of his prudent lover.

“What is it, babe?” Jenner asked, his eyebrows cinching in determination to hear Harlock out.

“This isn’t going to be easy for you, Jen. I mean it. If we...actually _find_ these ‘tunnels,’ traveling them will test the absolute limits of your body. We won’t have much air to begin with, and we need to conserve the emergency air we did get. This means you need to work your absolute best to stay calm so we only need to use it in dire moments. I know you can pull air to you with your magic, but you'll be reaching from too long a distance to do it frequently without tiring. I’m going to run as fast as I can to get you through this, but that will also make you feel like you can’t breathe, and I’m really worried about your panic attacks. Without a doubt, this is going to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done,” he warned, two hands delicately placed on either side of Jenner’s face as he thumbed his cheekbones.

“I’m worried about them too,” Jenner admitted in a moment of weakness regarding his circumstantial anxieties. He’d done all he could so far to ignore the tendencies of his body, but being so close to the epitome of a trigger was starting to break his confidence down. Jenner Cromwell didn’t do well in confined spaces and that has always been true. There have been quite a few examples of his panics over the years, and they even included things as simple as being in crowded clubs. Even the bus they’d traveled in with Harry and Louis had given him some discomfort at times...this was far worse than any of those instances, but it was something he needed to conquer. For his friends.

“I’m here for you,” Harlock said softly, touching their foreheads together for a brief moment and kissing his nose as he leaned back to speak into his eyes. “And I will do everything I can to help you. But Jenner...if something happens to you down there...I’m going to have to turn you. And I won’t take no for an answer. If we lose all the oxygen and you’re dying from asphyxiation, and you cannot fucking breathe at all, I will turn you before I’ll lose you. You need to understand this,” he said sternly but gently, knowing Jenner had always despised the idea of vampirism but also refusing to let him die in his arms. Hopefully Jenner would understand because he didn’t actually have a choice.

Jenner sighed heavily and trained his eyes on a tree to Harlock’s right, twiddling his thumbs around while he mulled over the potential outcome. Just the thought of turning was almost worse than the thought of permanent (or at least this life’s) death. He’d rather die with his magic than live forever without it, but his love for Harlock also played a big role.

They’d had talks of Jenner’s eventual death, and Harlock had fought through all his resistance to reach a grey area of acceptance, but that was under the notion of death from natural causes. Jenner wouldn’t ever expect Harlock to accept losing him to something that technically could have been avoided—losing him to the results of a premeditated decision that the vampire hadn't even wanted to do in the first place. That would haunt him forever and Jenner fully grasped that. “Last...resort,” he stressed as he locked his eyes back on Harlock’s one fire-coloured iris.

“Seconds from death, I promise,” Harlock vowed in agreement, pressing their lips together and squeezing his eyes shut for the duration of the kiss, throwing every scrap of his faith into the future. He didn’t want to destroy Jenner’s rare breed of human, but he would if he had to. Without a second thought. In any case, Jenner would be okay; of that he was sure—because even if he wasn’t, Harlock would make him.

“Alright, take me down,” Jenner said bravely and without waver, holding his arms out to be lifted. Harlock smiled sadly and turned around, kneeling on the ground so Jenner could hop on his back. Elijah was carrying the oxygen bag that Harlock would take from him later when Jenner was wrapped around his front, and Niko had all the food and water with him. Where both of their own bags were concerned, Veronica and William had taken those to be of as much as they could, and they’d all played a round of what could be compared to musical chairs to pass their bags off to someone else.

Now that Jenner was on his back Harlock stepped to the edge of the stupid cave, gripping his warlock’s thighs and hopping into the center of the dark chasm. Jenner’s stomach churned uncomfortably as they cut down through the air in a roller-coaster type of exhilaration, though he wouldn’t be participating in any cotton-candy afterward...whatever that even was.

The whole descension wasn’t long; he didn’t count to see if they’d taken the same time as the rock, but it had ended after a reasonable bunch of gut-flipping seconds. He opened his eyes and already couldn’t see much except the light twinkle of stars from above, and Harlock then moved out of the way to let everyone else fall down confidently.

“Someone give me a flashlight,” Harlock requested when all pairs of feet had safely landed, holding his hand out for whichever shadow would comply.

It was Stacey; she swung her pack around and fished for the desired object, pulling out the first one she felt and walking it over to Harlock’s scent. She was surprised how well she was able to navigate the terrain, given that sight was more or less hindered, soon to be useless when they went deeper, but it made sense that her nose and innate ability to tell what was in her way reigned over her ocular disadvantages.  

Harlock took the metal handle and flicked it on, letting the beam travel up the walls of where they’d just jumped down. It would be a chore to scale back up, but at least it was possible. The stench of stale air was already distasteful and he didn’t want to imagine how much worse it would get the deeper they dove.

He turned the scope of the flashlight to their immediate surroundings, scanning the area they’d found themselves in. They were on a sort of rock stage that stood taller than the rest of the stone flooring, and the north wall was slanted upward toward them to turn into the easiest wall to climb, so that was helpful—so long as that top stone stayed put and wasn’t replaced, it was logical that getting out wouldn’t be a problem.

He turned on his heel and studied the southern side, stepping off the foot-tall platform and listening to the magnificent echo that every tread of his feet blasted throughout the hollow arena. There were several passages within the southern wall, some small and some wide, and Harlock internally groaned over the fact that he might have to let Jenner go at times to wiggle his way through a tight spot.

“Which way?” William asked his Father, as if the old vampire had any clue as to how this should be done.

“Don’t ask me. Anywhere that will lead us further down, though,” Kyösti said, recalling the vague instructions his friend Øvind had given to get to the staircase, where the true details lie. “He said down past the narrow tunnels and crevices of the underground, once he was in an open cavity that is covered top and bottom in calcium formed teeth—”

“Stalagmites and stalactites,” Niko said unhelpfully, considering the fact that everyone already knew what Kyösti meant.

“Yes, Niko, thank you,” Elijah chuckled, patting his brother on the back when he shrugged innocently.

“—and the waterfall was halfway behind him from the start of the journey, he found it. We should train our eyes in the right corner of that location, I believe—for there across the slippery, spiky ground, is the pipe we need,” Kyösti listed, hoping he had that right because he’d only heard it once.

“Yeah, but which one of these passages is the right one?” Jet mused, watching where she stepped to get closer to the walls with the openings.

“Whichever one smells the worst,” Harlock answered, hopping over to be of help and suss it out with his Elder nose—in other words, the most trustworthy one here.

“Why worst?” Stacey asked, her knowledge of scientific and geological systems worse than a second-grader’s, due in part by being stuck in a house with an abusive husband for nineteen years.

“Because this passage—” Harlock said with a point through the one he was stood at, beckoning her over so she could study it herself, “—would lead us out,” he said, her face contorting in confusion as she sniffed down the corridor. “If there’s a fresh flow of oxygen, it means it’ll eventually lead out, even if that exit is on the other side of the mountain. It sounds suicidal, but we need to trap ourselves somewhere where there’s no way out. For reasons I’ll never understand why I agreed to, that kind of hopeless route is what we came for.”

“Huh,” Stacey hummed, setting on the task of finding the foulest passage.

Jenner tightened his arms around Harlock and sighed into the back of his neck, working on putting himself in some kind of trance where we wouldn’t care about what environment he was in. It wasn’t necessarily working, but there was nothing more comforting than the feeling of Harlock’s skin against his own, and he was determined to exploit that.

“It’s going to be okay, baby,” Harlock said quietly, rubbing at Jenner’s thighs with his thumbs and strolling over to the right corner of the area. He crouched down to inhale the air (or lack thereof) of the passage that was practically on the floor, and to his complete dissatisfaction, he knew this was the one. “Over here,” he said to his group, waiting until they were all gathered to straighten his knees and face them.

“This one?” Stacey asked curiously, lightly dropping onto her hands and knees and sticking her head down into the unknown. “It does smell bad,” she noted, looking over her shoulder for some kind of instruction.

“Well do we have to draw imaginary straws or is someone going to slide down there?” Harlock griped, refusing to go first because he wanted a safe passage confirmed before he let Jenner get himself stuck.

“I'll go,” Elijah said, taking his rings off and shoving them in the pockets of his jeans.

Elijah was the most like Erakus out of the family, and considering he was the eldest of the siblings, it was safe to assume Erakus got some his courageous chops from this brother. Harlock liked him for this reason, and he was glad to have him.

Everyone watched as Elijah gave a playful smirk and lowered himself into the steep diagonal pit headfirst, disappearing quickly and leaving behind only the faint sounds of his travels through the stone. It was about a minute later when he called back through the other side, letting them all know it got pretty straight down for a bit, but that it ultimately opened up again and everyone would fit.

“Okay...Jenner, I'm going in backwards and you're gonna follow me the same way, yeah?” Harlock said, bending his knees until Jenner’s feet hit the floor, turning around and holding his warlock lightly by the chin. “I won't let you fall.”

“Sure thing...go on, now or never,” Jenner urged, shooing Harlock playfully because the vampire didn't seem convinced with his resolve and had chosen to stare at him skeptically.

Harlock adhered and approached the entryway still illuminated by the flashlight he'd handed off to Stacey. He placed two hands on the rocky floor and transferred all his weight onto his palms, lifting his feet off with bent knees and then propelling himself through the throat of the passage without a scratch until he reached out to stop himself, demonstrating a much more graceful entry than Jenner could manage. Proven when the warlock had to tiptoe his feet down and crawl backward like a slug.

“You got it, babe. I’m right here,” Harlock comforted, waiting patiently until he was able to rub at Jenner’s ankles in front of him. “We’re just gonna keep going like this, okay? Come on, don’t stop,” he instructed, continuing on his merry way and matching Jenner’s valiant pace.

“This sucks,” Jenner grunted, his forearms in pain from walking them down the harsh rock surface.

“I know, sweetie. The passage is temporary, though. Elijah’s in another open room, we just gotta get there,” he said, reaching out and patting the backs of Jenner’s calves for support.

“I don’t—need to be completely babied, Harlock. I am seventy-two years old, after all,” Jenner grumbled, aware of how adorable that probably sounded to someone as old as Harlock. Nevertheless, that was still substantially old in the terms of a human, and that experience set him far apart from others who were the actual age he looked.

“I’m not trying to baby you, Jen. Just trying to help,” Harlock said smoothly regardless of his annoyance, figuring that a snappy tone would do them both poorly.

“I know,” Jenner groaned, upset that he’d let his attitude take over. He was a bit stressed. “How much further?” he asked, recognizing they probably hadn’t crossed that much distance anyway.

“I don’t know, babes. Don’t think about it,” Harlock suggested, the two making their wordless way across the length of this passage until Harlock began to feel it decline. _This must have been what Elijah was talking about_ , he thought, trying to squint into the depths to no avail. The more he scooted, the more vertical it became, and when it started to feel like a straight shot down, he grasped Jenner’s ankle to halt his movement.

“How are we going to do this?” Jenner panted, having noticed the change in angle as they’d went.

“This is going to sound complicated but pay attention,” Harlock said, waiting until Jenner hummed his wary approval before resuming. “We’re going to keep moving down until you feel like you’re about to fall off a cliff. By that point I’ll be further down in the center of the drop. You’re going to have to trust me for this one, but when you get to that point, you have to let yourself fall,” he said, praying that Jenner wouldn’t question it, but that was a long-shot.

“That goes against my body’s sense of self-preservation,” Jenner huffed, his invisible face grimacing at the thought.

“Certainly. But I’ll catch you,” Harlock said, straining up to kiss Jenner’s exposed ankle and hurry away from him to get ready.

“When do I go?” Jenner asked, his fingers curled around cracks in the greywacke slabs.

“Wait...okay now,” Harlock said from a noticeable distance away, the balls of his feet pressed into the opposite walls to cork himself in place, his claws embedded in a similarly intended manner and they were more dependable than shoe soles anyway. The width of the passage had drastically opened up when its angle had plummeted, and this shoulder catch would certainly be interesting.

He heard Jenner slip a bit and his muscles clenched in alert, prepared to save him when the warlock righted himself and tried again. “Are you okay?” he asked, predicting that his lover would be covered in bruises by the time they were out of this shithole.

“Depends on which third of me you mean,” Jenner responded, his physical, emotional, and mental selves racing each other to the top of the title ‘worse off.’

“Stay right there,” Harlock suddenly snapped, freezing the warlock as he got right Harlock needed him. “Time to test yourself. To do this seamlessly, you need to _fall_ , not slide. Big difference. You’re gonna drop onto my shoulders, okay?” he specified, totally prepared to shift himself in any way he needed to catch his extraordinary human.

“But I can’t _see_ you,” Jenner reasoned, wondering how the fuck he was supposed to land on something he couldn’t even gauge the location of.

“I can’t see you either, Jenner. But I’m still going to catch you. I’m in...what you can consider the center of the pipe. Your feet are on the last diagonal stretch at this very second. After where you are right now, this shit’s vertical. You have to push yourself off your stomach and fall off. I mean _launch_ yourself,” he stressed, revving up to use his lure (even if Jenner could usually fight it off) to speed this up. The rest of their group were still waiting for them to clear out before they would follow.

“Ludicrous,” Jenner laughed, walking his hands as close to his feet as he could get them and putting every shred of his trust in Harlock, right where Harlock deserved to have it. He’d never let him down before, and he definitely wouldn’t be starting now.

“Come to me,” Harlock urged, leaning forward to be able to keep his head in front of Jenner’s pelvis.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, pushing away from his safe space and splaying himself out like a flying squirrel, his limbs touching absolutely nothing for a single terrible second until the backs of his thighs collided with Harlock’s bony shoulders. He gasped and slapped his hands out to brace against the walls, squeezing his legs against Harlock’s ears and heaving breaths of relief. “That sucked, wow,” he chuckled, his heartbeat thundering in his chest from that burst of adrenaline.   

“You did it, sweetheart,” Harlock complimented, scaling down the rest of the way like a monkey, only releasing his hands or feet when the other set was firmly in place. He offered no complaints at Jenner’s one hand frantically fisting his hair like he was trying to remove it, instead letting him do whatever he felt he needed to.

This was easily the least lengthy leg of the journey, but Harlock wouldn’t be mentioning anything because the weighted pause had been Jenner’s technical fault, and the warlock didn’t need to feel worse than he already did for holding everything up. Alternatively, Harlock offered casual words of light content, routinely finding different ways to say “this will make a great story someday” and “can’t say we’ve ever done this together before / this is a new one.”

Jenner kept his eyes closed because it made no scrap of difference either way, and eventually they began to even back out to a slanted diagonal angle, but Harlock waited until he was sure that Jenner would be stable before guiding him off his shoulders. They eased themselves through when it got tight again and finally slipped out of the end, Harlock picking Jenner up and spinning him around in pride for being so brave.

“Clear,” he called through the tube, leading Jenner a safe distance away because vampires would soon be popping out of that gap like they’d been shot from a cannon.

“I found the next passage,” Elijah mentioned as they waited, directing his little flashlight to the opposite end of the area and showing the two lovers over to the only other opening there was in the wall, but Harlock still commended him. “Should I go down?” he asked, nodding with a smile toward his brother when Niko tumbled out into the clearing.

“No, let’s wait for everyone,” Harlock said, taking a seat and pulling Jenner down into his lap. “You doin’ alright?” he asked, placing exuberant kisses on Jenner’s neck to try and tickle him into being happy.

“Bit stuffy in here, but yeah,” Jenner said, taking as long and full a breath as he could, unfortunately letting it out much easier than he’d wrangled it in.

“You just keep letting me know how you are, okay? I wanna know everything,” Harlock stressed, rubbing Jenner’s spine with one hand, his outer thigh with the other.

“Well if I stop talking completely, I might just be trying to conserve air,” Jenner forewarned, already feeling like talking was somehow wasting the precious chemical that he had left to consume.

“So just squeeze the shit out of me if something is wrong, okay?” Harlock compromised, smiling when he felt the timid nod on his shoulder. For how terrified Harlock knew his lover was, his mental strength in the very face of his worst nightmare was something Harlock felt blessed and honoured to witness. Jenner hadn’t ever ceased to amaze him, since day one of their very first encounter, but this was beyond the bounds of merely impressive—Jenner was being someone that everyone on Earth should aspire to be. A legend.

“I love you,” Jenner whispered against Harlock’s neck, snuggling as close as possible when the last member of their group emerged from the passage, knowing that soon he would have to detach himself and temporarily be on his own again, challenging his physical endurance all the while trying to limit his breathing. What fun.

“I love you too, baby. So bloody much, I can’t even…” Harlock trailed with a chuckle, rising to his feet and rocking his weight between them to gently bounce Jenner as one would a baby, though Harlock knew Jenner wouldn’t complain about this kind of ‘babying.’ “You’re a champion,” he praised, setting Jenner down on his shaky legs and keeping a firm hold on his hand.

“How much further down do we have to go?” Stacey wondered, pretty rhetorically at that since no one had a definitive answer.

“Don't know but we should hurry up. Jenner can't be down here forever,” Harlock said, kissing his warlock on the temple and lightly scratching his scalp.

“I'll go first this time,” Niko said, disinclined to let his older brother show him up the whole adventure and steal all the thunder in the realm of initiative.

“Yes, quickly,” Harlock reminded, watching as Niko clamped his teeth down on the handle of the smaller flashlight and scrambled through the hole in the wall, this one lining up with their chests at full height.

They sat peacefully as they waited, Stacey keeping her flashlight pointed at the ceiling so the beam wouldn't irritate anyone’s eyes. William and Veronica were stood in each other’s arms and so were William’s parents, their faces calm and focused. Everyone seemed to be at ease with the situation and Jenner was jealous of them, wishing he could breeze through the cave as effortlessly as they.

“Okay, guys!” Niko shouted back up after about thirty seconds, an edge in his voice that sounded suspiciously like a warning. “This one was a steady decline, no drops, but it got _really_ tight there for a bit. You’re gonna need to push your bags down in front of you, I almost got stuck with mine,” he informed as Harlock met the worried eyes of Jenner, frowning sympathetically at the sheer dread within them.

“I’m going in feet first, then you’re coming in headfirst,” Harlock said to him as he grasped his shoulders, kissing his forehead as he grudgingly nodded. “You guys can come in right after us,” he said to the rest of the group, no reason they would have to wait to fly down this time.

“Good luck, sweetie,” Stacey cooed to the nervous warlock, meeting Harlock’s eye and giving him all her silent encouragement.

“ _You_ come in after us first, Stace. Keep that flashlight off but in your hand,” Harlock said, predicting that may come in handy to a disoriented Jenner.

“You got it, boss,” Stacey said with a sharp nod, Jet snorting and patting her on the shoulder in adoration.

“Here we go. Someone help him in after me,” Harlock said, approaching the hole and taking a few seconds of consideration to map out how he would do this, deciding to just go for it and leaping into the air as he dug his claws into the rock above the entrance, swinging his lower body horizontally and skillfully spinning around to end up on his stomach for the landing. “Christ,” he muttered after his success, shaking his head from the ridiculousness of this journey. If this turned out to lead to nothing, Kyösti was going to pay. Dearly.

Elijah and William helped boost Jenner into the opening, the warlock walking his arms forward as they supported his legs, then letting go when Jenner’s hips were past the ledge. Jenner kept wiggling forward until his hand hit cold skin, gasping in surprise because he’d been too concentrated to pay attention to who was still in front of him. Stacey had turned off the flashlight as soon as Jenner had been helped inside to save the batteries as she was instructed to, so true darkness now reigned supreme.

“Hey, sweetie,” Harlock cooed, caressing and kissing Jenner’s hands to calm him down. “Let’s go,” he said, scooting himself back as Jenner followed forward, keeping his right hand clasped around Jenner’s left to constantly remind him he wasn’t alone. Jenner certainly wasn’t saying much, and his breathing was getting a little labored, but Harlock forced himself not to worry, realizing that Jenner was only being mindful of his air supply.

Jenner started to feel a little hot and it didn’t make much sense. Most of this cave exploration had consisted of bitingly cold air, but the deeper they got, the warmer the temperature became. Not bloody helpful if you ask him. He’d rather be freezing with limited oxygen than sweating with it. Now he could be dehydrated too. _Fucking perfect,_ he whined in his head, squeezing his eyes shut and forcing himself to continue, determined to ignore the walls that were beginning to close in around him.

“You’re doing great, baby. It’s narrow through here, so let’s get through it as fast as possible,” Harlock soothed, listening to the sounds of Stacey and then Jet entering and making their gradual way down.

“Mmph,” Jenner huffed, his skin trickling with beads of sweat as his lungs began to gasp for air. “Shit,” he hissed, trying to blow air through a little ‘o’ in his lips like he was whistling without the singsong melody.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Harlock said, thumbing at the back of his lover’s hand and feeling himself get unexpectedly lodged. He furrowed his eyebrows and felt around the passage with his legs, discovering rock formations protruding into the hole that stilted an easy, straightforward cruise. He wrestled around and found that he needed to turn sideways to fit through, thinking that if things were getting difficult for a vampire, Jenner was about to go through hell.

“Okay, you need to…” he trailed, configuring how the logistics would be different for someone facing this. “There’re two rocks—one on the left, one on the right a little ways past and above the left one. You’ll need to pass the first on the right side of your body, then try to roll over on the other side afterward...I think,” he added in confusion, temporarily letting go of Jenner’s hand to feel around at the walls himself. “Yeah,” he confirmed, taking the hand back and slightly pulling to get him going.

Jenner felt close to crying because he already felt so trapped without being in the midst yet, but he held it all in, driven to keep his breakdown at bay so he could actually get out of here. He shuffled along as Harlock let go of his hand to give him the use of both, feeling his way through the darkness as tears welled in his eyes the more enclosed he became. _Not now._ He flipped himself sideways to fit through the roadblock, but that severely compromised his ability to move, and he started to feel as though he was getting eaten alive by the very Earth he was traversing.

Harlock was listening closely to Jenner’s breathing patterns, and he bit his lip in concern when it began to get erratic. He really didn't sound too good. “I'm right here,” he said softly, trying not to pressure his lover too much because if he did, it would likely make things worse.

“Harlock,” Jenner rasped, his throat closing around the tingle in the back of it that wanted him to sob. He was stuck.

“You’ve got this, Jenny,” Harlock said confidently, reaching out to take his hand and help slide him through the impossibly narrow space.

“I-I can’t—can’t b-breathe,” Jenner stuttered as the panic took over his soul, his every nerve imploding into his chest and screaming at him that he was suffocating and not going to survive it.

“Come on, Jen. Come on,” Harlock urged, gripping his lover’s wrist and yanking him a few inches closer. Jenner then locked his muscles and refused to budge, striking the match of Harlock’s worst fear. He began to wheeze his every pitiful breath, and the whines that poured out in-between were breaking Harlock’s heart. “Baby, focus. _Please_ focus,” he begged, forcing him a little further down but this angle proved difficult. There was almost no way to do this _for_ Jenner without cutting his skin from the rocks, and Harlock didn’t need him heavily bleeding on top of having a panic episode, but he might have to stop caring about that soon.

“H-help...help,” Jenner whimpered in terror, futilely searching the darkness for Harlock’s face and wailing when he couldn’t see him. “Can’t,” he rasped, repeating that word along with “Dark” like a broken record.

“Stacey!” Harlock shouted, fiercely rubbing up and down Jenner’s trembling forearm. “Shine that flashlight down here!” he ordered, relieved when he heard the the click of the instrument as she immediately saw the command through.

The harsh and blinding radiance of the flashlight pierced the pupil of his sensitive eye, but he resisted the urge to close it, ducking his head down instead and looking at the haloed frame of Jenner. “Look at me,” he said, shaking Jenner’s arm until he did as he was told. His eyes were red with tears and his teeth were clenched together, still chattering uncontrollably, but at least he was now focused on Harlock’s face.

“There’s my beautiful baby,” Harlock cooed calmly as they locked eyes, holding all his insistence inside to be a paragon of strength for Jenner to follow. “Jenner, I know this is awful, but you can get through this. You _can_. You need to move, baby.”

“Harlock,” Jenner whispered through his flow of tears, trying to flail himself and meeting nothing short of failure.

“Jenner Cromwell,” Harlock snapped to get his attention, craning up to him and crashing their lips together for a quick moment, sliding back down and grabbing both of Jenner’s wrists. “We have oxygen tanks for you, but to use them, you have to get out of here first. I’ve got you, but you have to hurry. You need to move _now_. Now!” he shouted, using a hint of his lure to dislodge Jenner from the spot he’d trapped himself in.

Jenner scrambled to comply because he wanted to escape more than anything—he just didn’t have the ability to make himself do it. He grounded the balls of his feet against the rock and propelled his body forward, finally getting his hips beyond the first stone bulge, but that trapped him even further when second one was now pushing down against his shoulder blades. He didn't understand how Harlock could maneuver this with the ease that he had, _backwards at that_ , but a vampire’s capabilities really shouldn't surprise him at this point.   

Jenner’s gasps for air turned dire when it was clear he wasn't getting _any_ now, and Harlock had to make the effort for him, taking Jenner’s outstretched wrists in one strong hand and using the other to push himself down, thereby grinding Jenner’s exposed arms against the harsh terrain as he dragged him along, unfortunately releasing the scent of his blood in the pressured air. “I'm sorry,” he mourned as Jenner choked and whined, getting him out of the tight spot but continuing to forcibly slide him down because the breath Jenner needed still wouldn't come.

“Who has the tanks?” Harlock bellowed to whomever happened to have them, using a speed to move that was probably hell on Jenner’s human limbs, but what choice did he have?

“I do!” William shouted, luckily from inside the tunnel, having gone right after Stacey and Jet.

“Niko, how close am I?” Harlock then asked over his shoulder, holding onto Jenner’s sweaty wrists and slightly digging his claws in when they began to slip. “Come on, baby,” he repeated softly as Niko loudly informed him they were close.

A few more horrible moments passed by as they tried to complete the journey, a short breeze mysteriously washing over Harlock’s skin before Jenner suddenly got suspiciously and nerve-rackingly quiet. “Don’t use your magic right now, Jenner. Jenner?” he repeated when he got no reaction, shaking his human’s wrists that had done deathly limp. “Oh shit, Jen? Jenner!” he cried as he pulled him down with all his might, keeping all of his attention on his human’s worrisome heartbeat.

At long last, Harlock’s feet broke through the exit, and Niko yanked them both through with strong hands on the Elder’s ankles, the two lovers tumbling into the shallow water on ground one after the other as Harlock lurched to catch his human in his arms, frantically yelling into his unresponsive face. “Jenner, stay with me!”

 

~~~

 

Erakus woke with a scared start, nearly leaping out of the bed until he remembered where he was, then trying to settle his worried mind and get more sleep. However, with the knowledge of where he was came the knowledge of why he was there to begin with—after thinking about their missing friends, he couldn’t possibly sleep now. Still, he wondered what had frightened him so terribly. A dream? Surely something nefarious enough would have had the insistence to stay present in his thoughts, right? He thought so.

“My beautiful Erakus,” Marley spoke sweetly to his left, his naked skin sliding against Erakus’s as he stretched his leaden limbs. He still felt a little groggy from the magical sunlight wielding assholes that had struck tragedy upon them, but if he felt completely fine, he’d probably be over a thousand years old, and not his basic age of 152. Although he shouldn’t call himself basic because Erakus was only 141, and that would sound like and definitely be taken as an insult.

“Hi,” Erakus said distractedly, shaking off his confusion and attacking his newfound partner in forever with affection, letting the sweetness of his lips take him away from the darkness that was non-stop waiting around the corner.

Marley let Erakus do the same that he himself was being used for, staring unblinkingly into the paralyzing arctic blue of the Finnish immortal’s irises, the sight of them ensnaring him in a world of serene beauty that he never wanted to leave. “We should probably go out and see what Liam is up to. I can hear him rummaging around in the—”

“Shh,” Erakus urged gently, silencing him with a press of their lips and running his hands down the sides of Marley’s pliant body. “Just give me a moment here with you,” he whispered, trailing kisses down his lover’s chest and licking on both of his nipples symmetrically, making his way back up and rolling onto his side to wrap him up in his arms and _forget_. Forget. Forget everything. For just a second.

 

\---

 

“Did they call?” Erakus asked as he lumbered into the kitchen, where Liam was sat at the table with Johnny beside him eating a mostly devoured bowl of Raisin Bran. Zayn and Niall weren't present, so he assumed they were still asleep, and they honestly had every right to be.

“No, it's still sunny over there anyway,” Johnny said with his mouth full, swallowing sheepishly and wiping his mouth.

Liam snorted in amusement and turned his tired eyes back on his guests, the both of them looking how he felt. Which was getting ground through an ocean of hellfire and then hung by a rope for ninety eight days. “I’ve called the Guardians back. Finley’s really busy but he’s going to try to come. Julius, Bernard, Petra, Annabelle, Lauren and Lawrence, and Oliver are on their way, though. Should be here in about twenty minutes, give or take,” he said, pulling his wonderful human into his lap when said human pushed his emptied bowl away.

“Great, what are they gonna do?” Erakus asked, finally dropping down into a chair as Marley chose to sit _on_ the table. Which isn’t the first time he’s done that.

“Well I don't expect there's much they can do. Not about Harry or Louis anyway. They've already been keeping their eyes peeled, but all for naught so far. They've managed to contact other countries, however, and have put an extensive word out on our friends, so the world is looking,” Liam assured, his human shifting in his lap in that antsy way humans always did when they wanted something.

“We should wait until Harlock gets here to charge off and do something anyway. Liam, when were you born?” Marley asked out of curiosity, wondering how close in age he was to Harlock.

“One moment,” Liam said with a held up finger, biting into Johnny’s neck and making him squeal in pleasure.

Erakus and Marley averted their eyes as Liam drank, choosing to stare at each other and calm (fat chance) their lust from listening to the sounds of the act. They smirked into each other’s eyes and Erakus curled his fingers around Marley’s closest leg, sliding his hand up and dipping it between his thighs while the Aussie dug his nails into bottom of the mahogany ledge. So much for calming.

Liam pulled off and moaned from the high, collecting a nearby napkin and wiping the blood from Johnny’s puncture wounds. The human fell into him like he hadn't a muscle in his entire body, and Erakus snapped to attention, pointedly keeping his hand around Marley’s ankle to keep them both in check.

“I was born some time in the 1300’s. My gut tells me 1336, but I honestly could be wrong. I was born into poverty, and didn't have much access to calendars and such,” Liam said, smiling down at Johnny when soft little unconscious coos fell from his lips.

“I see,” Marley mused, reaffirming his opinion that they needed Harlock here as well—he didn’t know how busy the Guardians would be when they would require their assistance, and Harlock being older than Liam would most definitely come in handy...if only he knew where that Elder was.

“That piece of shit!” a cockney accent erupted into the house after a slam of a door, two pairs of footsteps stomping down the hall and coming into the kitchen, revealing the brunette Lauren and her brother Lawrence in all their twinny glory.

“I assume you mean Beatrix,” Liam chuckled, petting Johnny’s back when he awoke with a fright.

“I most certainly do,” Lauren seethed, hooking a foot around one of the chair’s legs and dragging it across the floorboards to sit in. “Can’t believe that barmy slag—the bloody nerve! What’s she got to prove? She always reminded me of a rat, too. Fitting that she is one,” she bit, Lawrence having silently communicated with Liam as his sister had been ranting to ask for a human.

“Eric!” Liam called expectantly, bringing the requested human into the kitchen and directing him to Lawrence.

Erakus realized it was the same human who had woken him up from sun sickness, and he could taste that blood on his tongue when Lawrence took his share.

“What’s been happening out there?” Liam asked Lauren, curious but also terrified to hear of the world’s affairs over the last however many hours it’s been.

“Think Nazi Germany, but everywhere,” Lauren muttered hatefully, idly circling her index finger on the kitchen table as she glared at the wall.

“What, they’ve got humans in camps?” Liam asked, tightening his arms around Johnny when the human slapped his hands over his mouth in horror for the mistreatment of his kind.

“They’ve been clearing out prison grounds and arenas and sticking ‘em in there,” Lauren informed, not quite having all the details herself, but that part had been hard to miss. “For what, I don’t know. Blood suppliers, probably. I heard the Americans have been bombing their cities...dunno if England’s got the spunk to do that to ours, but it could be on the way. Lotta military is still functioning, I expect the predators are going after them next,” she supposed, sighing as he swept her hair back off her face. “Nasty business.”

“How many humans do you think are still out there on the run?” Liam asked, wondering how many there could be left to save.

“Dunno...but the longer we wait, the more they’ll collect. We’ve gotta plan a counter-attack, and fast,” Lawrence chimed, carrying Eric over to a nearby chair and carefully slumping him down into it as he stroked his cheek in thanks.

“We have been making contact with the world as we planned. Julius had a lot of contacts, and they’re all in the same position. Everyone’s just so busy looking after their countries and killing predators, nobody’s had the time to focus on the big picture yet…” Liam said, rather wishing that the Guardians _would_ drop everything and join the larger fight immediately.

“Well, we’re not entirely sure what the big picture even is, Lima bean. All’s we know is Auron’s name, but we haven’t at all heard of his whereabouts, and he’s captured the two immortals that could have led us to him. Plus, it’s absolute pandemonium out there—nobody has the luxury of a moment’s rest. There isn’t much hope to give the Guardians at the moment...we have nothing,” Lauren mourned, flopping her upper body down on the table and resting her head in the stacked pretzel of her forearms.

“That’s why we have to make finding Louis and Harry a priority,” Liam stressed, barely noticing when Julius, Bernard, and Petra strolled into the room.

“But how do we explain that to the Guardians? Who are so fixated on taking out the predator numbers,” the Roman general noted like he'd been present the whole time, nodding at Erakus and Marley when they uttered soft-spoken greetings.

“Exactly. No one will want to go on a goose chase when they could be killing enemies. They consider their time better spent causing that kind of damage, versus dropping everything and making a wide search for our biggest assets,” Lawrence said, his face scrunched in deep thought.

“Technically they are looking,” Liam pointed out, furrowing his eyebrows when the other Guardians looked at him skeptically. “What? It was _you_ who said they’ve been looking as they go…at least _some_ attention is being put on Harry and Louis.”

“They say that, but are they really? Do you really think they’ve actually been scouring their countries for two immortals they don’t even know when they’re so sidetracked by everything else?” Petra challenged, eliciting nods of agreement from the visiting Guardians.

“Don’t they see how essential it is to find them? Can’t they grasp that?” Erakus griped, his anger boiling over at the lack of concern in the world of the Guardians.

“Is it? Imagine how it sounds. You’re asking them to look for two creatures who were already captured by the enemy. To them, it sounds like those two have already lost. What’s the point if they’re already dead?” Bernard reasoned, causing Marley to latch onto Erakus because the Sparrow had attempted to lunge for him.

“They’re not!” Erakus snarled passionately, raising the eyebrows of the Caesar trio.

“How do you know?” Petra asked knowingly, well aware that Erakus wouldn’t have a concrete answer.

“I just do,” Erakus bit, shaking Marley off and leaning back in his chair, surrendering his desire to attack. “Harry and Louis are alive. So are Martin and Tanner. They can’t be dead...they’re just not.”

“That’s not good enough! Not _nearly_ good enough; don’t you see that? There’s no evidence whatsoever,” Petra said logically, adamant to convince Erakus that he was talking himself in circles.

“But don’t they understand that finding Louis and Harry means finding _the leader_ of this mess? If we take out Auron, well...that’s like cutting the head off the snake! Without him, everything else will crumble. Guaranteed,” Liam said with verdict, truthfully unsure of the enemy’s hierarchy and chain of command, but he figured the loss of Auron causing a chaotic uproar was a safe bet to assume. He’s aware that other Elders could be in line to take over if Auron was ever removed, but he’s forcing himself not to think about that. They’d take them all out. Every last one.

“But where’s the _proof_? Where’s the confidence we’d even find both in the same place? And asking them to leave their people to the wolves is too much for such limited information. They’re dedicated to freeing their people from this lure collection and killing the Elder predators in their towns and counties— _and_ cities. You can’t ask them to leave everything behind when we’re _not even sure_ of your claims!” Bernard said; it’s not as though he was on the Guardians’ ignorant side, but he could definitely understand their hesitation. The world was too messy to ignore right now...even for a brilliant cause.

“Fine! We don’t bloody need them, then,” Erakus boomed, his glare penetrating the trio and invoking sympathetic expressions. “We’ll save them ourselves! We’re just waiting on Harlock and Jenner; they’re really good forces to have, and they comprehend the necessity of this. And my family...they’re good too. As soon as we’re all together, _we’ll_ go save _our_ friends, and the whole fucking world while we’re at it. You don’t have to come,” he bit, forsaking every Guardian on the planet if they weren’t going to help.

“Well we’re coming,” Lauren assured, Lawrence furiously nodding along. “Harry is our friend. We’ve known him much longer than you, and we’d never ignore him in a time of need. Key player to end this or not, our friendship tops all of that. He could be an innocent bystander, and we’d still lay our lives on the line,” she declared, earning the grateful smile from Erakus and Marley.

“Agreed,” Liam seconded, prepared to throw himself into the very pit of battle to win his old and newfound friends back from the clutches of the enemy.

“What about you?” Erakus then asked Julius’s group, deciding not to care either way. They didn’t need them. They could use them, but they didn’t _need_ them.

“We’ll have to decide that when it comes down to it,” Petra compromised, giving neither a yes nor a no.

“Fine,” Erakus huffed, deciding this conversation was over with and pulling Marley up by the sleeve, marching them both over to Eric and taking a useful amount of his blood from him. “We’ll be in our room. Go wake up Zayn and Niall so they can fill us in on the bullshit we miss,” he said petulantly, leading his lover out of the kitchen to do more anxious waiting masked with pleasant distractions. He could smell Finley and Oliver arriving as they walked down the hall, but he didn’t need to hear any more complaints from the pompous Guardians about how Harry and Louis “weren’t important enough.” They were _crucial_ , for fuck’s sake.

Erakus slammed their door and walked Marley to the bed, sitting down and pausing before initiating any kind of sexual escapade.

Marley lowered himself onto the bed, staring at the floor and fighting his tears. They both felt pretty hopeless, and the shitty thing was that there wasn’t anything they could presently do about it. Even with Harlock behind them, there was no guarantee that they could find their friends...and Harlock hadn’t come yet. Which was worrisome in itself. “What if we lose them?” Marley asked meekly, opening the dark door of his innermost fears to the one creature whom he could trust with them.

“I know…” Erakus said in understanding, knocking the side of his head against Marley’s as they both stared down at their laps.

“We lost Harry, Louis, Martin, and… _and_ Tanner,” he sniffed, letting the words tumble out of him like a garden hose of hopelessness. “I can't lose Harlock and Jenner too. And Erakus, your family…” he lamented, grasping Erakus’s hand and holding it tightly.

“I get it, Marley. I’m not nearly as confident as I appear...I’m really _really_ scared. I don't ever want to lose them, and it's tormenting me to think that we might. But if—if we do…”

“If we do, I can still promise one thing,” Marley took over, interrupting wherever that statement had been leading because he wanted to get this out.

“What's that?” Erakus asked glumly, his eyes glancing in the direction of Marley even though he couldn't really see him.

“You’ll never lose me,” Marley whispered, meeting Erakus’s striking eyes when the Sparrow pulled away to gawk at him with powerful emotions in his expression.

“How could you possibly promise that?” Erakus asked, guarded from letting that vow into his heart because although it sounded amazing, it could never be set in stone.  

“Because I'd rather lose you forever than curse you to live without me,” Marley replied, wiping the sudden tears from his lover’s crumpling face.

“Marley…”

“I mean it,” Marley asserted, taking hold of Erakus’s face and commanding himself to be listened to. “That is...well that is if living forever without me would be that bad a thing,” he corrected nervously, his eyes blinking away from Erakus’s in sudden embarrassment. “I might be getting ahead of myself…”

“You're not!” Erakus promised, grabbing Marley’s face and forcing his gaze to return on his own. “That would be terrible.”

“Well there you have it,” Marley said with an edge of relief, allowing himself to smile even though the concept under discussion was utterly heartbreaking. “It's settled then. Someday, hopefully never, but if it _does_ happen, I promise you you're dying first,” he professed, gasping when Erakus’s lips sealed over his own with a feverish insistence. He grabbed Erakus’s shoulders and pushed him onto his back, breaking their kiss to stare into his awed eyes. “I love you too,” he said preemptively, smirking at Erakus’s surprised eyebrow raise. Erakus didn't need words to say that to Marley—his eyes did it for him.

“Well I suppose I don't need to say it, but ditto anyway,” Erakus chuckled, reaching up and linking his fingers together behind Marley’s neck.

“I think it's time I reclaim my dominance over you,” Marley said, the epic subject change throwing Erakus for a spluttering loop. “Roll over,” he said darkly, pulling Erakus’s fingers apart by the wrists and lifting himself up to give Erakus room to move.

“But I haven't reveled in mine enough yet,” Erakus pouted over-dramatically, biting his lip in amusement when Marley shot him a deadpan stare.

“Are you saying no?” the Aussie asked pointedly.

“Are you nuts?” Erakus scoffed, quickly flipping himself onto his stomach and eagerly pushing his hips up, moaning and shivering when Marley chuckled and kissed down his lower back, his sounds growing louder when Marley gently slid his trousers down his legs as the trail of his lips dove lower and lower. “Never would I ever.”

  


~~~

 

_“Jenner, stay with me!”_

Harlock rolled Jenner over his body to make room for everyone else and screamed at them to hurry up. Stacey and Jet blasted through the tunnel and William chucked the tanks bag with a warning of incoming that someone needed to catch it. Niko was there in an instant and ripped a tank out of the pack, but that was as helpful as he could be. “Mom, help!” he shouted, Veronica just then breaking through the tunnel and rushing over. She had the best mind under pressure and buckets of common technical sense.

Veronica caught the cannula tubing that Niko tossed and tore it from its plastic bag, configuring the regulator with the toggle valve and pressure gauge onto the tank when that was handed over next. Now all she needed to do was twist the metal knob on the top of the cylinder and turn the dial to its setting of ‘1,’ and then the tank was hissing from a spigot under the dial. All common sense. She hollered in success and jammed the end of the tube over the air spout, flying over to Harlock and handing him the section with the little prongs.

Harlock snatched the offering from Veronica’s hand and forcefully slapped it over Jenner’s nose, holding it firmly against his nostrils and cupping his hand over them so the oxygen had nowhere to go but through his sinuses. It took a few tense seconds for Jenner to show any change, but the sudden wide expansion of his chest had Harlock groaning in gratitude.

Jenner’s eyes snapped open from whatever in-between stage of consciousness he’d just suffered through, and the deep inhale of air he was able to take matched with the wide space he’d found himself in was like ecstasy.

“You...scared the shit out of me,” Harlock growled, wrapping his lover up in his arms (careful not to squish him) and feverishly kissing his cheek.

Jenner smiled and tucked the sides of the tube behind his ears, sitting fully upright once Harlock had let go and reveling in the precious oxygen getting returned to his starved brain. “Sorry,” he croaked, making the surrounding vampires chuckle at his behavior.

“Sorry? _I’m_ sorry. I’m _so sorry_ to ask you to do this shit. If I had any sense at all, I never would have brought you here,” Harlock grumbled, a glare finding its way to Kyösti while the Grandfather held his hands up in surrender. He smoothed the lines of his face when he found it in himself to admit they’d had no other immediate option, but he’s now seriously regretting not making Liam’s people come and get them. They were just as fucked down here as they would have been on the surface.

“It’s okay, Harlock. I agreed,” Jenner said, taking in the sweet breaths he’d been barred from having for long past his limit.

“That means nothing,” Harlock snorted, the ultimate responsibility resting with him to make the right decisions for the both of them. He didn’t know if he’d necessarily failed him with this, but it certainly didn’t feel like a success.

“This passage is open,” William noted with glee after scouring the grotto, jogging back to the group as he jabbed his thumb behind him. “Looks like we’re halfway.”

Harlock looked around and realized from all the excitement, he hadn’t even noticed the large pool that made up the left side of the high-ceilinged and mineral-dense area they’d come to. The whole interior looked like it was coated in waxy icicle candles, and everything seemed to sparkle with all the natural glitter the world could offer. The waterfall as mentioned was more of a watery wall, versus the roaring jettison that you’d expect when you thought of the word, but it was substantial enough to convince Harlock that they’d crossed a half of their desired distance.

“Jenny baby, here’s a water bottle,” Stacey said, having taken the item out of her bag and walked it over to Jenner’s weak form. Harlock took it with a thanks and uncapped it, helping Jenner gulp it down like a dehydrated fish and get one step closer to recovery. “This place is amazing,” she then said in awe, taking Jet by the hand to go shine their flashlight on fascinating things while they waited.

“Look at those things,” Kaisa said about something Jenner couldn’t care about, the Sparrows giving the vampire/warlock couple their privacy and indulging in a little sightseeing.

“You did the best you could, and I know that,” Harlock said softly, twisting the cap back on the bottle and setting it down on a stone out of the water. Jenner’s back and sides were completely soaked, but he appreciated the colder temperature of the water in comparison to the air, and felt no desire to move out of it.

“I tried to—”

“Pull air to you, I know. I knew I felt a breeze back there,” Harlock finished for him, combing his damp hair back and smiling at his sheepish face. “I told you you’d wear yourself out with that. It’s why you fainted. Fuck, I hated every second of that,” he sighed, tutting his tongue off the roof of his mouth when he got a look at the red tint in the water from Jenner’s spilt blood. “I scratched you up pretty bad back there...sorry.”

Jenner looked down at his abused elbows and forearms and snorted that Harlock even cared about it, his shoulders shrugging in complacent acceptance because it was a rather minor thing to sustain in the grand scheme of what he’d just gone through. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he reciprocated, taking more water when it was dutifully offered.

“It’s okay. Looks like we’ve got an easier time with this next one so I’m going to carry you. Are you ready?” Harlock asked, busying himself with putting the tank beside the other two in their designated bag, being extremely careful not to jostle the cannula out of place.

“Yeah, as I’ll ever be,” Jenner said dejectedly, allowing his legs to be hooked around Harlock’s back when the vampire leaned all the way down to gather him, hanging on tight when Harlock rose up to his full height. Harlock called out for someone to help him put the backpack on because he had his arms rather full, and Jenner held on like a koala each time Harlock had to take an arm away. He readjusted his cannula from the disruption of position and tugged the extra feet of line down in-between their chests so it wouldn’t catapult out of range from his face if Harlock ran too quickly.

“You’ve got about seven hours with that if the flow is constant—I checked an ambulance pamphlet thing—so we should probably save it. Keep it on for now, and when you feel back to a decent sort of normal again, we’ll try turning it off for awhile,” he said, cocking his neck back to be able to look into Jenner’s eyes with one his good one.

“Sounds like a plan,” the redhead groaned in exhaustion, closing his eyes and actually managing to doze off before Harlock had even taken one step from his current location.

Harlock grinned and nosed at Jenner’s cheek, hiking him up gently with the arms propped under his arse and expertly using gravity to guide Jenner’s head into the crook of his own neck, strolling to the opening and quietly calling everyone to action. The Sparrow brothers went in first and Harlock followed instantly after, the passage being more than tall enough to fit his stature within its frame. No one knew if it would congest again any time soon, but venturing was the only way to find out, so on they went.

They traveled the second half of the distance as such, and Jenner only needed to be woken up and taken off the oxygen twice so he could crawl through narrow spots, but none were as traumatizing as the earlier examples. He was on the edge of falling asleep once more after a while of quiet walking, but when Kyösti exclaimed that they were “here,” his eyes shot open in alarm. He twisted around in Harlock’s arms and the vampire put him down, taking the cannula off as Stacey turned the top of the tank to close the airflow. It was indeed rather hard to breathe but he pushed through, walking over the illuminated stalagmites from several directed flashlights to approach Grandfather Sparrow.

Harlock came up behind him and held him by the hips, peering over his shoulder into the back right corner of the cave and dropping his jaw open in dumbfounded incredulity. What did he see? A fucking staircase. “No,” he refused, stepping around Jenner and dropping down to get a closer look. “Get the fuck over here with those flashlights,” he demanded, snatching one from Niko’s hand and pointing it down the case. “ _What_ …”

“It’s really there?” Stacey inquired, quickening her careful strides and crowding around the rumoured mystery. “That’s actually terrifying,” she murmured, staring down the eerie mouth of the built-in decline that was damp with moisture and soundtracked by the echoes of falling droplets.

“Who the fuck was this source of yours?” Harlock asked the Grandfather, his wide eye spearing through the old man’s face. The entirety of the Sparrows didn't seem that shocked that their Grandpappy had been accurate in his claims, but Harlock had _fucking questions_.

“It is of no importance. The staircase is here,” Kyösti stated, having not taken his eyes off it once.

“Yes...it is,” Harlock admitted nervously, wondering how the hell this had never been proven. Is it because those who ventured never returned? Were they inevitably doomed?

Jenner said nothing and pushed past the gawking vampires, fearlessly jogging down the staircase without a second thought.

“Agh—the fuck are you doing?” Harlock squeaked, immediately running after him and causing everyone else to follow in their stead. Evidently there'd be no going back now.

Jenner took Harlock’s hand when it slapped down on his shoulder, entwining their fingers and glaring into the darkness that flashlights could only illuminate so far, his face set in ardent determination that only death could ever sway. “Saving our fucking friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not telling you when Harry and Louis are gonna come in. Listen, I have three distinct groups of people here. Ive got Erakus and Marley, etc in England, ive got Harlock's group and the Sparrows in the caves and tunnels, and then Harry and Louis in (undisclosed location). This is the two first group's stories. If you don't know what they went through, it would make absolutely no sense when they show up and all come together. Now you'll know why and how. The end. BUT... If you want a tiny, tiny sneak peek, I made a post on tumblr with a clippet of Harry in it, if you'd like to read. But I won't say what chapter it's in. Here you go: http://wubwubnparmaham.tumblr.com/post/160904970913/love-endlessother-sequel  
> Until next time.


	3. Keeper Of The Black Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just your average Jackson trying his hand at horror. Hey listen, I listened to THIS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmAigNs72Ro&t=2411s) as I wrote this chapter, with headphones, in the DARK AT 3AM, and I nearly pissed myself. But reading it back now, it's not that bad. Just a bad experience to write I guess. That satanic "music" certainly didn't help. Do it at YOUR OWN fucking risk, I hate that track so bad. Gnaws at my fucking skin. I wasn't gonna upload again so soon, but I know how high Harry and Louis are in demand, so I figured I'd speed this up a bit. Even if it fucks me in the end. Don't say I don't love you.  
> In other news,  
> Rip to all those lost tonight in Manchester at the Ari concert. My heart and soul goes out to them, it's such an awful tragedy, and I hate the world. I'd take evil vampires over evil humans any day. We're worse. :'(

If you'd have asked Harlock Lawson even three days ago what he'd be doing on this night, he would have said something along the lines of “making love to my warlock under the stars.” And how he wished with every fibre of his being that he was.

For instead, he was carrying said warlock in his arms with two of his vampires and the entire Sparrow family minus one behind him, trekking through ancient and previously thought mythical tunnels under the Earth, en route to England so he could save the immortals who could save the world. Because someone needed to. Because the world was suddenly in grave peril...

Pretty huge contrast there.

Don't even get him started on the fucking staircase. It had been composed of more spirals and turns than an Etch-a-Sketch in the hands of a two year old, and yes, he knows what those contraptions are, and the descent had been astoundingly tedious. After flying down for what was technically a longer journey than the cave had been (discounting the fact that it had gone respectively quicker at full speed), they’d finally come into the infamous tunnels that weren’t supposed to exist.

The tunnels were somehow darker than the cave, and that was already a mindfuck, but it was clearly possible. Blacker than the blackest black one could imagine. It was like stepping into an alternate reality or the deepest pits of outer space, and Harlock was more amazed and dumbstruck than he ever thought he could be with each passing second inside its vast emptiness.

They’d turned on the flashlights in an instant to bar themselves against the nothing that surrounded them, and light almost seemed too weak to push through the thick blanket of shadows. The beam of their biggest flashlight theoretically should have been enough to illuminate some odd twenty feet down the length of the corridor, but it only reached maybe five before it was swallowed by the air. Or complete lack thereof. There was a density to the atmosphere here that made you feel sick—even the vampires. Something wasn’t right here. There was something...evil about this place.

Jenner had requested he be put down upon arrival because he needed to feel the Earth and listen to its calling that only he could hear. The environment was giving him an uncommon amount of nerves that went far beyond the borders of ‘claustrophobia.’ This was heavy shit. He held the cannula tight over his nose and pulled Harlock to the nearest wall, hard-packed with rock and dirt that really shouldn’t be fortified strongly enough to withstand the weight of the Earth above it. These tunnels truly shouldn’t exist, but it wasn’t just for the fanatical reason they had thought. These were physically impossible.

Jenner inched his way to the whispering wall and bravely pressed his palm against it, searching its secrets and assessing its power. Without a doubt, magic had once coursed through these halls, and it lingered still but it was faint. And for it to be this strong and still somehow faint in comparison to what it once was...

“What do you feel, Jen?” Harlock whispered, the mere theme of the tunnels making him feel like he needed to whisper, in fear of disturbing some unimaginable horror that was easily awoken.

“Magic,” Jenner rasped back, unable to use much of his voice from the lack of breathable oxygen. This place dealt more in the range of oxygen toxicity from the immense pressure of the chemical, and they couldn’t dawdle here in any sense or Jenner would never make it out as a mortal.

“What do you mean?” Harlock questioned, stripped of any access to feel the magic that lay within the fabric of life.

Jenner furrowed his brow and turned his gaze toward their path, glaring at the darkness as though it were staring right back, almost waiting for something to move and burst through it. “This is old...dark magic,” he said with a shudder, stepping backward into Harlock’s chest and gripping the hand at his side.

“What does it feel like?” Harlock asked, trying for a more specific question so he might get around Jenner’s cryptic musings.

Jenner shook his head and his heartbeat thundered like the chilling beat of a war drum, only looking to Harlock when the vampire leaned over to meet his eyes. Harlock was clearly waiting for an answer, but Jenner didn’t have much of one to give, besides the thing that he was beginning to realize more and more as time went on. And it wasn’t helpful at all. “Like we’re not alone.”

Harlock despised that answer. He held Jenner tight against him and squinted his eyes into the very manifestation of darkness, taking Stacey’s flashlight from her trembling hand and thrusting it out as far as his arm width would allow. “I can’t smell anything…” he noted, aware that this fact might not mean much in the grand scheme of things. If a warlock had bad inklings, they were usually substantial.

“Take me into it,” Jenner said with an unreadable edge laced in his tone, the desire to come in contact with this anomaly overcoming everything else in his mind.

Harlock was admittedly reluctant, but the air in the oxygen tanks _would_ run out, and that was a fate he would avoid at all costs. He glanced over his shoulder at his wary group and cocked his head toward the tunnel, silently directing them all to move as one and slink into the pit before them. Nothing seemed to happen as they crossed the distance of where they’d been to where they’d been looking, and that told them the oozing black was actually all around them; only light could visually unveil it.

Jenner was sweating from the heat and his mouth felt dry and cracked on the inside but he couldn’t remember to ask for water, continuing to shuffle his feet along the rectangular tunnel and beg the overwhelming magic for mercy. Someone like him should never have come to a place like this, and though he was sorely regretting it, he knew he’d gotten himself here of his own volition. Incorrectly assuming everything would be fine was on him. But how could he have known? This wasn’t what he had expected—not even close.

“Baby, are you sure you’re okay?” Harlock murmured, probably referencing Jenner’s heart rate, breathing, or muscle quivers, or maybe all three, but the warlock barely registered his words, his mind racing with the possibilities of what was on the other side of the T-intersection they were nearing. Should they go left or right? How could they ever know the answer to such a dilemma? Left or right? Left or right?

“I’m fine,” he grunted in lieu of confessing how he truly was, pushing his sleeves up to his shoulders and readjusting his cannula as they halted at the end of the road, two equally menacing paths on either side that flashlights wouldn’t uncover. Each could go for miles and they’d never know until they tried. But which one? He faced left and then right, a petrifying breath of tricky magic suddenly crawling up the back of his neck and urging him to move forward. “This way,” he croaked without wondering if that persuasive magic should be trusted.

The group filed out into the clearing and rounded the right corner, and Harlock kept the handle of their light source squeezed in his fist because he couldn’t shake the feeling something was going to try and take it from him. Take away all light forever.

Jenner suddenly halted with a pained whine and lost all the support in his legs, keeling over until Harlock caught him in his arms and lowered them to the ground.

“Jenner!” the Elder cried, that sound officially the loudest since they'd set foot on the ground of the tunnels.

“It's closed. It's closed,” Jenner said monotonously, repeating it a few more spacey times as Harlock fretfully felt around his heated skin.

“Harlock? What is he saying?” Elijah asked nervously, linking his fingers with his brother Niko’s just to stop himself from panicking.

“Shit, you're burning up,” Harlock said as though Elijah hadn't uttered a word, bracing the slumped Jenner against his knee while he quickly removed the backpack from his shoulders and pulled his shirt off over his head. He then reeled the feverish Jenner into his chest and held him close, his immortal body temperature uncompromised by the high degrees of the Earthy depths, leaving his skin just as icy as it always was.

Jenner seemed to subconsciously appreciate the refreshing sensation, but he still quaked with recurring jolts and strange, ominous statements about the way being shut. “Jenner, please look at me,” Harlock whimpered, forcing his lover’s face up to his and sighing in relief when Jenner’s eyes focused on him like darts. “What's happening?” he stressed, his brow creased in an unchanging line of troubled concern.

“The path,” Jenner said simply, a weak hand lifting to point in the direction of which they'd just come.

The Sparrow Grandparents turned around because they were in the back of the group with the closest vantage, and Lotta gasped in astonishment at whatever she’d found. “ _Paska_!” she obviously cursed, her tone speaking for itself to those who did not speak Finnish.

The group opened up like a school of fish when Harlock lifted Jenner (after stuffing his shirt into the bag and slipping it back on his arms) and swept along to the opening in bewilderment, each vampire making quiet remarks of their own as they finally viewed the impossible happenstance. The path they'd just taken was gone.

“How has this happened…” Harlock breathed below a whisper, checking Jenner’s face that was locked onto the solid rock wall that used to be the tunnel from the staircase.

“This is what dark magic _is_ , Harlock,” Jenner informed, slightly calmed by the chilled temperature of Harlock’s body against his own that had previously felt close to overheating. “It plays with you. It’s malicious. This place is old, and so the magic within it. No one uses stuff like this anymore—no one knows how,” he said, reaching out and silently asking to be walked over to the magically closed wall.

Harlock was reluctant but he approached the blockage nevertheless, digging his clawless nails into Jenner in apprehension when the warlock slapped his hand on the impossible wall. Nothing disastrous seemed to occur from the contact, so Harlock let his hands release the death-grip he’d had on his lover, simply holding him as he waited for Jenner’s verdict. “Stacey, light a torch,” he commanded after several seconds of silence, now notably terrified of running out of batteries on their flashlights.

Stacey did as she was told and gathered the hearty stick, one of the rags, the oil can, and one box of matches from her bag. She configured the ingredients to make the perfect torch, letting the rag fully soak through for the best results, and struck the plucked match on the coarse side of its box, transferring the tiny little flame to the torch and watching it engulf the cloth like a ravenous beast.

After their natural light was acquired, every vampire switched off their flashlights, returning them mostly to Stacey’s bag as she passed the torch off to Elijah. He took it with a clenched hand and dropped his head onto his Mother’s shoulder, now worried for all of them and not just the air-breathing Jenner.

“We have to keep moving,” Jenner said, flailing his hand after he’d removed it from the wall because the sensation of dark, ancient magic seemed to want to stick to him—much like the feeling of walking through a spider web and being hard-pressed to get the strands off without difficulty. “It wants us to keep going.”

“ _It_ wants? That’s not comforting,” Kaisa muttered, her older sister hanging onto her like a sloth.

“Which way?” Harlock asked instead of wailing at the harrowing words coming out of his sensitized lover, at a loss on how to navigate something so foreign to him. Jenner had gotten weird with magic before, like sometimes it tried to take him over, but those situations had been easily reversed with a good night’s sleep and health to match. The gravity and significance of this magic, however, seemed to have a hold over Jenner that he couldn’t shake. Like it was breaking his guard down and seeping into his soul—changing him.

“It says to go that way,” Jenner informed with a point to where they’d been facing before he’d collapsed: the hall to the right of the place that once was.

Harlock sighed and took the suggestion, wondering if magic itself saying so meant they should alternatively go the _opposite_ way. Magic this dark was all new to him, and it frustrated him to no end that he couldn’t feel a damn thing. There was something odd to the tunnels, sure, especially the happenings that he’d now seen with his own eye...but nobody felt anything close to whatever was happening to Jenner.

Vampires are so disconnected from life that even when they temporarily have it, it’s _never_ the real thing. It only smells, looks, and feels as such. Jenner was a human warlock, though—that was his rare and precious species. It was in his very DNA. By the title, he was inherently perceptive of things in nature beyond a regular human’s sense of reality, and therefore exceptionally vulnerable to the nefarious shadows of the unknown. A place like this seemed to be having a horrid effect on his mind and spirit that Harlock couldn’t cure—couldn’t even begin to understand—and it was fucking horrible to watch.

“I know!” Jenner suddenly shrieked down the length of the tunnel, tumbling out of Harlock’s arms and standing on dizzy feet, anger all over his face as he glared with all his might at something only he could truly sense.

The exclamation bounced around the enclosure and came shooting back like a boomerang, the final echo reverberating somewhere behind them. Jenner was talking to it now. Lovely. “Jenner...” Harlock said sternly, gripping his lover’s fire-orange curls and yanking his head back until he was staring at the dirt ceiling, descending on his bared neck with sharp fangs between the V of the cannula and hissing against his throat to inject as much endorphins as he could at once.

Jenner tensed in shock and then melted as the drug took effect, closing him off from the harsh insistence of the dark magic and replacing his haunted mind with muddled euphoria.

Harlock took just a small sip of Jenner’s magical blood and a ghastly feeling crept over him; it was a mere fraction of Jenner’s supernatural illness, but it was enough to show the cut-off vampire what it was like to be a warlock down here. “My poor baby,” he whined after pulling out, ducking down and lifting him into his arms by the backs of his thighs.

Jenner felt himself being maneuvered and he tried to keep his ankles together around Harlock’s lower back, but he lacked the muscles to hold the twist firm, and they broke away as he slipped down his vampire’s torso.

“I got you,” Harlock soothed as he effortlessly caught the human before he could fall and hiked him back up his body, pressing his inner thighs into his own sides with the length of his forearms so Jenner didn’t have to worry about his ankles. “Can you hug me, baby?” he asked, grinning in Jenner’s dazed face as the warlock configured the request.

“Like this,” Stacey said from behind them, keeping that calm, motherly smile that everyone loved on her face as she pulled Jenner’s limp arms up around Harlock’s neck, secondly adjusting the properties of the tank and cannula tubing to make sure everything was functioning properly.

Jenner’s arms coiled around Harlock of their own volition and he mewled in tranquility, adoring the rubs of Harlock’s thumbs on his upper legs. He should be worried about something but he couldn’t remember what it was...couldn’t be _that_ bad.

“I hope he stays like that,” Niko said softly, meaning nothing by it but relief that Jenner had been put in a headspace that didn’t involve panic or robotically spoken phrases of ambiguously sinister meaning.

“He won’t for long,” Harlock sighed in disappointment, gazing down the path they would take and biting on his lip in distaste.

“Good boy, Jenny. Get some rest, okay?” Stacey cooed, Jenner’s brown eyes staring blankly at her in a way that said even through the haze, there was no way he could sleep.

Jenner started slowly coming to and that was obvious to everyone around, the drunken warlock looking around the tunnels with frightened and increasingly wider eyes. It was when the first whimper came back that Harlock acted out against this budding clarity. “No, look at me,” he requested, Jenner’s eyes flashing to his one and blinking nervously. “Go to sleep,” he ordered in a lure, diving back in for one more bite to give him an overload of endorphins that, combined with the lure, would knock even the strongest warlock out for at least a little while.

Jenner broke his gasp off with an unconscious groan, slumping into Harlock’s collarbones when the vampire backed away. “That’ll only work for so long—we have to run,” he said quietly to his fire-lit group, eyeing the torch in Elijah’s hand and wondering how long they would have it burning.

“Run? Just run through the dark?” Susanna asked dubiously, her Mother back-handing her shoulder to snap her out of the throes of fear.

“Girls, I raised you to be fearless. You too, Niko,” Veronica said passionately, ignoring the appalled sputtering the youngest brother displayed because Elijah had been glossed over, as per usual. “I bestowed on all of you the name of Sparrow; I’ll be cursed in hell before seeing it tarnished by cowardice,” she bit, shaping her daughters up board straight to prevent further scorn. “Which way, Harlock?” she demanded, unseeing of Lotta and Kyösti’s proud smirks behind her. They were William’s parents, but they’d always respected his choice of woman.

“This one,” Harlock said, dashing off without another word and cutting through the thick black like an arrow, only seeing again when Elijah caught up to him with his secondly superior speed and illuminated the way with a protective hand in front of the torch’s flame to keep it alive from the wind.

They ran, and they ran, and they ran, turning corner after corner, meeting more than their fair share of dead ends, and they were completely, stupidly lost. Sometimes they swore they’d already been through a corridor they found themselves in, sometimes their scents lingered in a new location it couldn’t possibly have been...but whatever the oddity, they were clearly going in fucking circles.

Worst of all was that none of them could judge which way was east. As a general principle, vampires have an easy time navigating the directions of a compass without the mentioned object in hand...but this was hopeless. East could be upward and they’d never know the difference.

They must have traveled for at least an hour in the labyrinth of the underground hell-hole, driving themselves mad with conspiracies that the tunnels were rearranging and rebuilding their routes whenever they looked away. It had already been proven once before—it was unfortunately safe to assume that it was happening with reckless abandon, trapping them in a directionless loop no matter what they did, all the while ticking the minutes until Jenner would run out of air. Sure, they had roughly eighteen hours of it, but at this rate they’d be here forever.

Something had to change.

Harlock’s internal monologue was abruptly shut down with the force of a vehicle engine’s backfire, and he skidded to a stop (sharply waking Jenner in the process) near the end of another T-intersection, urgently holding his hand back to halt the rest of his group. “Stop,” he hissed, yanking the Sparrow sisters back one by one when they flew past him. “Stop, stop, stop,” he vitally insisted, putting Jenner down to lean against the supportive brace of Stacey as he tasted the musty, unbreathable air with his tongue and roof of his mouth. Rot. The scent of rot and decay.

“Harlock?” William whispered, his hand curling around the back of the Elder’s shoulder tensed with trepidation.

“Shh! Do you smell that?” Harlock replied lowly, his focused eye straining into the darkness like the aroma might pop out to say hello. “There’s something down here…”

“What would be down here?” Elijah murmured fretfully into Harlock’s ear, the vampires mirroring the tense position of cats in high alert, their shoulders hunched, their fangs bared.

“Nothing good…” Harlock muttered, glancing at their dimmed torch and making a quick decision. “Light a flare.”

“What?” Elijah asked. “Harlock, we only have two of those—”

“Light. A flare,” Harlock said resolutely without room for refusal, Jet obediently wrangling with the buckles of Stacey’s backpack and pulling out one such item.

Harlock closed his eye as Jet uncapped the brick-red rod, using the granular pad of the cap to strike the end of the flare and ignite it with a loud crackling buzz, dousing the rocky dirt halls of the tunnels in a fitting shade of blood red. Shadows danced as the molten firework flames flickered and Harlock listened closely beyond the raspy screech of the provision to detect any movement from the smell of ancient rubbish. He heard nothing yet, but the scent was getting closer, and when his group froze with tangible tension, he knew they could smell it now too. “It’s coming.”

“Harlock,” Jenner whispered with adamant care to his volume, his big teary eyes vying for a comfort that Harlock couldn’t presently give. The Elder removed the tank pack from his shoulders and handed it to Stacey, who took it instantly and set it down beside Jenner’s knocking knees.

“What is that?” Niko whined in fearful disgust, gagging on the putrid stench and mentally asking its owner to spare him at the same time.

Harlock was just about to respond when a noise tiptoed into his eardrums, teasing and playing with him as it approached, the noise’s wretched scent not far behind. Scuttling. That was an apt comparison to the sound tickling the acoustic bowels of the tunnels. Not running, not shuffling, but a frantic tittering. Much like a rat in a sewer, only this was thirty times the size. At least. “Right side,” he stated, snatching the flare from Jet and holding it out in front of him, slowly backing up as the urgent sound grew closer and more erratic.

The whole group backed themselves a few paces away from where they’d stopped, getting some distance between them and the top of the ‘T.’ Jenner’s heart rate was off the charts as another dominating panic attack began to take hold, but before Harlock could reach out to help him, the sound made itself known...and it didn’t make any fucking sense. But it was the worst thing he'd ever seen.

There, at the end of the two-way tunnel break, _on the ceiling_ , was a thing you could only consider to be a monster. A sick, rabid, and demented looking immortal, grotesquely deformed likely from centuries of being stuck down here in the dark, who may have been coherent once upon a time but certainly wasn’t now. It cranked its neck sideways to look at them like a creepy porcelain doll, yellowed saliva secreting from its cracked lips as it revealed two onyx black eyes without one sliver of white membrane to be found. Its throat snarled and wheezed excitedly at the scent of Harlock’s lover, and that assumption was a dead giveaway. Jenner was human. And this thing likely hadn’t smelled one of those in a very ( _very_ ) long time.

“ _What_ the…”

The creature itself interrupted Harlock’s incredulous expletive, letting out an animalistic roar as it charged on all fours across the ceiling, the sheer speed of its grotesque crawl causing Harlock to blindly throw the flare behind him for someone to catch because he was going to need both hands for this. “Get back!” he snapped, forcefully shoving Stacey away as she took the boiling teapot Jenner with her.

He bent his knees and leapt up to the ceiling decorated by a creature from an award-winning horror film, swiping his claws across its cheek as it shrieked in defense. It moved so jerkily that the scratch had been all Harlock was able to do, but that wouldn’t change the result—he was going to destroy this travesty.

Harlock landed back down on the floor and righted himself in an instant, standing protectively before his speechless group like the shining beacon of vigilance he had always aimed to be. “What the fuck are you?” he spat at their unprecedented adversary, only attempting conversation to note whether or not this thing could speak.

As expected, the creature said nothing with words, sickening growls and hacks barking out of its mouth instead. It was obviously male, so documented by its naked skin, and it didn't seem to remember how to stand on two legs, twisting and falling onto its hands and feet upon the ground.

Harlock lashed out without giving it a second to prepare, but it didn't particularly need one, meeting Harlock’s attack with boundless enthusiasm, the pair wrestling in the dirt and ferally snapping their jaws at each other. To fight a monster, one had to become a monster, and Harlock embraced it in full.

“Be careful!” Jenner squealed in terror, his heart under siege as he watched the instinct-driven altercation before him. He had his hands cupped over his nose to huff the oxygen at his disposal like a drug, and Stacey had subtly cranked the flow dial to ‘2,’ so he was getting more than enough to open his tightened lungs. The warlock stared on at the battle, both immortals enduring deep clawings and gashes to their skin and snarling in outrage, but no teeth had pierced flesh so far.

“Elijah!” Harlock deeply growled, tackling the creature when he'd slipped past him by climbing the wall, en route to Jenner who was instantly guarded by the entire Sparrow family.

Elijah jumped forward regardless and delivered a harsh kick to the monster’s face, sending it straight over to Harlock’s awaiting arms, where the Elder latched on with a vice-grip and dug his fangs into its shoulder, ripping away a chunk of skin and making it shriek in fury.

That left enough time to wrestle it to the ground, and Elijah pounced to restrain its lower half. Harlock used that temporary trap to his advantage, slapping all five claws into the sides of its neck to tear its head from its body, the pop of its neckbone breaking in two like a sweet melody after all the tone-deaf cacophony.

The success was short-lived when another of its kind came barreling around the corner, shamefully undetected because Harlock had put his senses elsewhere, and he scrambled to get out from under the first one’s body. “Shit!” he cursed, soundtracked by the fearful wails of Jenner as he finally stood. The rest of his group had darted out to help him, but most had to make a guard around Jenner—the situationally powerless human of the bunch.

Harlock flung himself onto his feet and whipped around to defend himself, but the moment he turned to meet his attacker’s deformed face, a sword blasted through the middle of its skull, and the group gaped in shock. The unanticipated blade almost took out Harlock’s other eye it came so close, and he stumbled backward in relief that it hadn't.

As quick as it had pierced through the creature’s head, splitting its nose and upper jaw in two, it receded, the lifeless descent of the creature revealing a white-blonde haired, tall and scrawny bodied, only partly clothed, seasoned adult aged, incredibly haggard immortal male behind it with a wild and untamed expression on his victorious face.

“I thought I'd been imagining things,” Kyösti said before anyone else could speak first, tiptoeing around Harlock and staring at the eyes of the stranger. They were black like the others’, and that pigment stretched wider than the average diameter of an iris, but it had not yet encompassed the entirety of the whites. Apparently he was only in the beginning stages of the madness.

“Kyösti,” the stranger said carefully, like maybe he was imagining things too.

“I am,” Kyösti confirmed, stepping forward and resting his hands on his old friend's shoulders. “And you're Øvind,” he informed to prove his identity further.

“Øvind,” the immortal repeated in wonder, smiling in jubilance as tears welled in his deteriorating eyes. “That's my name. You gave me my name back,” he whined in gratitude, throwing his arms around Kyösti and training his gaze on the individuals behind him. “Is this the Lotta you’ve spoken of?” he asked, grinning when Kyösti nodded proudly.

“Kyösti, don't make me fucking ask,” Harlock snapped, Jenner held tightly in his arms as he stared the talkative pair down in suspicion.

“This was the source,” Kyösti explained, a familiar hand on the veteran’s upper back as he pointed to his chest. “My proof of the tunnels’ existence.”

Harlock chewed over the information, thinking back to the crypticism of Kyösti’s alleged ‘trustworthy source’ and growing irate rather quickly. “Do you mean to tell me...that you knew this vampire had found the stairs...entered the tunnels...and then _never came back out_? _And you still led us down here?”_ he roared, grabbing Kyösti by the collar and dragging him in to hiss in his face.

“Harlock!” Jenner shouted from in-between the sibilating immortals, slapping at both of their chests until they backed off. “All of you! This is great and all, and we’re very happy for you but _who or what the_ _fuck were those guys_?!” he screeched as he cut his finger through the air to address the two dead creatures of unknown origin.

“The ‘who’ cannot be said,” Øvind mourned, staring down at their corpses in a kind of nervous sorrow, perhaps fearing he would soon be one of them. “The ‘what’ is also difficult to...they were obviously of an average appearance at one time, but they’ve been down here too long. I call them the Lost. _De Förlorade_. They are a sad bunch,” he sighed, setting off Kaisa’s temper of disbelief.

“Didn’t seem sad to me!”

“Kai,” William snapped, shooting her daughter a dangerous glare in discouragement.

“What?” she defended, pointing at the two outdone monsters as though she was trying to jog everyone’s forgetful memory. “You _saw_ them, didn’t you?”

“I mean the concept,” Øvind corrected, tapping at one of their legs with his bare foot, having lost a majority of his clothing in scuffles and fights along the way. Saving his trousers all this time was nothing short of a miracle. “No recollection of who they once were, no shred of any cognizance left within them. Some kill themselves to escape the madness before it takes hold...I’ve been thinking of it lately myself...but some power through. Determined to find a way out that they never will. I’m sorry you have all found yourself in the same position.”

“We have not,” Harlock barked, every bit as terrified of Øvind’s account as everyone else, but refusing to give it weight until proven otherwise. “We’re going to make it out of here.”

“Yeah,” Øvind scoffed, sliding down the wall until his butt hit the floor. “So was I...so were _they_ ,” he added with a head cock in the second one’s direction. “Kyösti, why have you come?” he asked sadly, wishing his own fate upon no other creature in this world, including his personal enemies.

“It’s...a long story,” Kyösti responded, unwilling to reveal their secrets because Harlock was already in a pissy mood and that could set him off.

“How long have you been down here?” Stacey asked when no one said anything more, deciding to communicate with Øvind directly instead of Kyösti because she reckoned he’d done quite enough on other people’s behalf.

“I don’t know,” Øvind replied honestly, looking to Kyösti anyway because he would have remembered the last time they’d spoken, and that kind of knowledge was long since lost on him.

“Well we hadn’t been in America long,” Kyösti began, scratching at his light blanket of grey facial hair under his chin. “Veronica had moved to Finland from England quite a while before I turned them in…”

“1850,” Harlock reminded, having heard that affronted argument mere hours ago.

“Right and we moved to America in…”

“1888,” Susanna said surely, her Mother nodding along in agreement as she did the math.

“Which means I must have met you, Øvind, after you had moved from Sweden somewhere before the turn of the nineteenth century, possibly in the 1890’s, and you would have found the staircase and told me about it in the latest of that decade,” Kyösti calculated, rethinking everything over again to really get it down.

“And what’s the year now?” Øvind inquired, prepared to hear any answer because he wouldn’t be able to guess if everything depended on it.

“It’s 1973,” Harlock said, watching Øvind’s face as he stirred the pot of information.

“Been a short while then,” the immortal finally said, while William stepped up to interrogate his Father on the things he’d never before been told.

“Papa, where did you meet this immortal?” the Sparrow Father asked, giving Øvind a wary glance because whether or not he'd been helpful, he was eerily similar to the creatures they'd encountered—just one step away from foaming at the mouth and embodying your worst nightmare.

“In a blood club up north,” Kyösti replied, his eyes narrowing in thought as he tried to remember the specifics. “I can almost be sure it was in Oregon. I don’t believe I ever explicitly spoke of my travels to anyone besides Lotta; she knows my every move and thought,” he said fondly with a loaded smile at his sweet wife, both likely recalling the good old days in their youth with tight skin and boundless energy. Well they had energy now, but not quite the tight skin part.

“I remember your talks of Øvind,” she rasped, her throat always sounding like it was caught on something, like she’d swallowed a pepper moments before speaking.

“Look,” Harlock said, butting into the conversation because they simply didn’t have the luxury of reminiscing when they could be making progress in the tunnels. “Anything you have to say to each other, you can say on the way. We’ve gotta—”

“Find a way out of here, I know,” Øvind muttered, pushing himself off the ground and shooting Harlock an unnerving look with his pitched eyes. “And I’m telling you that you won’t. See that Lost? Older than you, wasn’t he?” he challenged, pointing down at the enemy that had been taken care of before his arrival.

“Irrelevant,” Harlock snarled, close to violently ending this sour sport too if all he was going to do was kill their morale.

“Is it?”

“Listen, punk,” Harlock snapped, his hands sliding off Jenner to curl into fists at his sides. “Maybe that one was, but you’re certainly not. So you’ll treat your Elder with some fucking respect. We’re getting out of here, and you’re going to help us. Help us fight this most egregious addition to these blasted pathways,” he ordered, referring of course to the pile of rot at his feet.

“They’re not even the worst of it,” Øvind said in lieu of reminding the Elder that there _was_ no way out, shuddering at the mere thought of what else lurked inside this bleak warren.

“What,” Harlock deadpanned, that prized morale of his plummeting down into the pit of his stomach.

“Not the worst?” Elijah echoed, hugging his middle and leaning his weight against his pensive younger brother. He tended to lean into people when caught off guard if you hadn’t noticed. Call it an affectionate coping mechanism.

“There’s something else down here…” Øvind said quietly, like the thing he couldn’t place was somehow listening in on their talk. “I’ve never seen it myself...but I know it’s here. I’ve felt it time to time; smelled its unmistakable scent. It’s beyond ancient, whatever it is...it’s incomparably worse than the Lost, of that I am sure,” he murmured, brows creased in haunted and unadulterated fear.

“The magic knows,” Jenner mused in that creepy way he’d frequently been doing, smoothing a hand along the hard-set dirt wall and nodding to his own thoughts. “The magic bends to it—responds to it,” he informed vaguely, catching the shocked gaze of Øvind but not noticing it.

“I didn’t realize you had a warlock with you,” the young and white-haired Swede noted in genuine surprise, his fixation having been glued so tightly onto Kyösti harboring a human in general that he hadn’t looked any deeper into its identity.

“Yes, and I’d like to _keep him_ a warlock,” Harlock stressed, scooping the pixilated Jenner into his arms and inclining his head down to the backpack, smiling curtly when Stacey did her unspoken duty by saddling it onto his shoulders. “Surely you’ve learned something from being trapped down here…”

“Anything I thought I learned got reversed when I finally realized the routes were changing,” Øvind shot down, resenting the tunnels he’d suffered in with a fire that nearly consumed him, bringing him closer to madness every time he gave in to frustration.

“I still think we can get closer,” Harlock argued, committed to this far-off idea that with a little hope, they could illogically overcome this massive drawback.

“By all fucking means,” Øvind muttered, gesturing around the corner cordially as though he were inviting guests inside his home for a refreshing glass of blood. And though the tunnels might be considered his unintended “home,” there lay nothing inside worth a damn—nothing but oblivion.

Harlock glared at the Swede in the red glare of their noisy light source, deciding it might be better to have something that doesn’t make such a racket down in a maze where grotesque opponents had the ears and noses of three ancient Elders combined. He instructed Niko to light the torch again and for Jet to extinguish the flare, the drastic shift of hues making them all blink dazedly as they adjusted.

Once the jarring transformation took place, Harlock looked at each and every member of his family, translating in the lock of gazes that he was incredibly sorry for ultimately agreeing with this decision and that if he could take it back he would. To his surprise, they all seemed just as determined as he, and this rose his spirits to the heavens that were otherwise completely inaccessible to him, painting a smirk on his face as he turned to fly down the left corner.

“That fight would have alerted others of our location,” Øvind informed before they set off, needing to inform the group of the forces that were currently working against them, knowing full well that the volume of that altercation had stretched a long way down since he’d been able to follow it as well.

“Let them come,” Harlock bit, bending time to shoot down the left corridor with his readied friends behind him, every set of claws and teeth out as far as they could go, almost daring the Lost to creep out of their holes and try that shit again. They would not be staggered a second time.

 

\---

 

And they weren’t. Many attacks had come, some from males and some from females, all in different stages of Lostness, as it were, but none won in the end. Not against the circumspect Harlock that fought for Jenner like a guardian angel; like the very bringer of death.

Jenner had swooned in contrasting terror more times than he could count, maniacally cackling down at the outmatched Black-Eyes (or so he’d been calling them in his head) when their heads were swiftly removed from their twitchy frames. They still had a bothersome tendency to approach via ceiling-crawl, which was just awful to watch, considering they moved like jumping spiders and had bent, knobby joints like an arachnid’s legs...not pleasant in the slightest.

Øvind had been as helpful as the situation called for, having much more experience under his belt at killing these things than the newbies did, and the addition of light—something he’d been tormented without for longer than anyone should ever endure—was like a precious gift from the Gods that he did not take lightly, mind the pun.

“There’s no end to these things,” Harlock grunted, smashing his fists down on a Lost’s skull so hard its blood sprayed out like a sprinkler, coating the Elder’s face in sticky black goo that was three times denser than average immortal blood. He gagged on its viscosity and fished his shirt out of the tank backpack that was now carried by William (who had stayed near the back with Jenner in his arms to give Harlock the freedom to fight), and roughly removed the bloodstains from his cheeks and mouth like it was acid poised to sear his skin.

“We’re in deeper parts,” Øvind informed, wiping his brow though no sweat would be present, the habit deeply ingrained in his body when under exhaustion.

“Aha!” Harlock cried victoriously, pointing his finger at the immortal as he shoved the soiled shirt back into the bag, thinking twice about it and tossing it away from them entirely, disinclined to get that sickened blood anywhere near Jenner’s oxygen. “You admit it’s crossable.”

“I’d actually consider this deeper _into_ the inescapable mess,” Øvind refuted, disappointed to be back near the heart of the activity when it had taken him a good chunk of time to reach the outskirts. “Take a look at the openings,” he said to Harlock, swishing his arm to one such opening to bring attention to the fact that they were multiplying and had been for a while.

Harlock bent to the suggestion and eyed the walls, admitting that their long stretches of tunnel had become substantially shorter as more openings had dictated the frequent turns they'd had to make. “What's your point?” he grumbled indignantly, impressing even himself with the level of denial he'd managed to uphold.    

“You know very well what my point is. But in any case, the Lost like to congest these areas. Not that it's much of a preference. They're too far gone to find their way back out; expect the population density to increase exponentially the further we tread,” Øvind warned, the hilt of his sword gripped tight in both fists.

“Copy that,” Jenner quipped, reaching out and slapping Harlock across the back of the head, irritated at him for being so unreasonably positive.

Harlock turned to glare at his lover, noting the dark circles under his eyes and surrendering himself to the sharp talons of guilt—Jenner was running on empty and it was his fault. He felt it too, the insistent waves of exhaustion, and he was fairly confident that the sun had risen by now. They couldn't exactly feel the strength of it being so far beneath the Earth, so it didn't hit them like it normally would, but Jenner needed sleep more than they...and he wasn't going to get it any time soon.

Amidst his sympathetic woes, he—and every other immortal—tensed like a statue, picking up on the discomforting amount of Losts not far ahead. They'd tended to come in singles, pairs at best, forming a line to cut down like weeds, but this was a crowded congregation of them and it was the very opposite of ideal. “Should we go another way?” he whispered, groaning out loud when the familiar scampering broke out as the Lost latched onto their scents.

“Looks like we'll have to fight them all,” Elijah chuckled regretfully, setting aside his worries and shooting his claws out to mar some flesh.

Øvind readied his trusty sword for the upcoming pest control extravaganza, still grateful that he'd managed to hold onto the weapon all these years. It had quite literally been his only friend, and he'd whispered more secrets into it than he ever would an animate recipient.

The girls took up their usual spots to surround Jenner like he was the Queen of England, but Jet remained at the frontlines with Harlock, her core values encompassing backing his every move even on the brink of annihilation. That was the pledge she had sworn on her second day at the house in Lockhart. Once a warrior…

The group stayed steady instead of charging into battle like they would have if they didn’t have a human with them, and the ominous sounds of their enemies’ approach was used as a countdown, the vampires unanimously counting backward from ten in their minds. When the five second mark rolled around, Harlock closed his eye, savouring the blip of peace in the eye of the storm all the way from four...three...two...one...

A swarm of Lost spread out on the walls and ceiling like locusts, hissing at the uncommon dose of luminance that Harlock’s group held captive. The deformed beasts pushed through the shock as the others had and grossly descended to the floor like steaming piles of compost, their limbs bent at obscene angles like boney tentacles as they rapidly crawled their way to the heavenly scents before them.

When they were a metre away, Harlock let out a roar and met the closest with an audible crash of bodies, tearing into its neck while his fellow fighters rushed past him and took on the others behind. When he’d disposed of that one, Harlock went on to the next, discarding any passing thought that didn’t involve taking out the first thing he touched.

Øvind was hacking the Lost to pieces with his sword that he swung like an axe, and after he’d neutralized three enemies at once with a wide swipe of the weapon, he tensed in alarm. “The thing that’s worse?—” he called to the group, pausing a moment while he desecrated two more Losts. “—It’s close.”

Harlock allowed himself to set a tiny bit of focus outside the battle range, picking up on a dastardly scent and gritting his teeth together in rancor—now was not the time. “Keep fighting!” he ordered, backing up to escape the heat of the fight and reinforce his grounded balance in front of Jenner. He would be between the Lost and his lover at all times, whether he lived to tell of it or not.

The Sparrow women and Stacey delivered harsh kicks to any one Lost that temporarily broke through Harlock’s guard, and the Elder was always quick to throw them back into the fray, his careful eyes constantly jumping from the Sparrow family to Øvind, watching their backs studiously for potential sneak-attacks.

They were doing a marvelous job all things considered, the torch being held by an attentive Veronica to help their vision and distract the creatures. The Lost may have raw agility and speed, but their blocks were rusty, if even present at all. As long as they didn’t get the high-ground first, it was easy to counter their moves without their knowledge, considering they were totally and completely blind.

Harlock snatched two heads of spindly hair and bashed their skulls together so hard they temporarily shared a brain, throwing the sacks of meat to the side and gearing up for the next unlucky (by all accounts) victim. Unlucky to be down here, of course—but unluckier still to run into an enraged and viciously protective Harlock.

They didn't need to continue fighting for long; very shortly after the fodder had appeared, they'd been expertly exterminated, and Harlock currently had his claws in the last one. He gripped the inner bowl of its cranium and smashed it with all of his might into the left-hand wall, showcasing his legendary aggression in a single conclusive action to release some of the apexed pressure in his chest. The sound made upon impact was like a clap of thunder, and Harlock’s forearm tensed in sharp pain from the consequently shattered bones of his knuckles. They would heal, but there was no denying it was a nuisance. This Earth was too thick for anyone's good.

As the group stood on the precipice of unleashing a chorus of tired groans, a larger, much louder sound occurred first, raising the hairs on Jenner’s neck in consternation because it was coming from the tunnels themselves. It started with a low rumble, like the sleepy snores of a bear, building in power until they could feel vibrations in their feet.

Eyes uniformly met the closest pair to them, every individual rooted in a stationary stance as they waited to be in the know—the know of what the fuck this was. Then came the crack—the spiderweb of breakages that began to shoot out from the crater Harlock had created with his fist.

“Shit, Harlock,” Jet breathed, gripping Stacey’s hand and preparing to make a mad dash for survival.

“This is not good,” William added under his breath, the entire group’s eyes following the vertical line that made its way up to the corner of the ceiling. Once it made contact, a chunk of stone tumbled to the floor, and the loudest snapping sound yet blasted their eardrums, their balance flailing from the comparative tremor of an earthquake. They had seconds.

“Run!” Harlock bellowed commandingly, sweeping Jenner (and his backpack) into his arms and leaving his group behind regardless of whether or not they could keep up. Jenner was his top priority and that was absolute.

As it were, the immortals weren’t far behind, the fastest of them carrying the younger ones in their arms in an intense race against the clock. The chilling soundtrack of collapse chased after them, and Harlock looked behind him to see the complete destruction of the tunnels’ fortification, the carved architecture crumbling to block the path forever like a massive broom sweep headed straight for them. “Come on!” he urged frantically, zooming down the most forward route he could find.

The wreckage of the tunnels followed with an unnatural eagerness, quickly gaining on their immortal pace and evoking true panic in every heart it sought to crush. Harlock spied a passage that looked like a giant slide, and though he had no way of knowing where it would lead, or if they would come out alive, he squeezed Jenner’s screaming frame and dove headfirst into the depths, taking his chances with this decline than more aimless rights and lefts.

Harlock used so much power in his take-off that the end was partially in sight before he’d had to put a limb down to propel him any further (“partially” due in part to Stacey’s wildly spanning flashlight beam that she'd thought to utilize at some point in the run).

Harlock and Jenner tumbled out their landing and the vampire scrunched his nose from the awful smell that found his nostrils, shaking it off as he unceremoniously dumped Jenner down onto the sharded rocky floor, thrusting his arm back into the passage to yank everyone through one by one before someone got left behind.

Stacey and Jet were first, landing with grunts and thuds and scrambling out of the way when Niko (with a still living torch upheld in his fist), Veronica, Susanna, and Kaisa rolled onto the ground in a heap. Next came Lotta, Elijah and his Father, and then Kyösti and Øvind. The sandstorm of dust that billowed into the atmosphere after them had Jenner burying himself into Harlock’s chest to avoid choking, and his coughs regardless matched the rhythm of the last of the rocks settling over the opening to forever close the way they'd just taken.

“I’d never _once_ found that tunnel,” Øvind noted in awe, that creeping feeling that they weren’t alone coming back with a vengeance.

Harlock held Jenner close and looked at his group, assessing any serious injuries and feeling like the luckiest bastard on Earth to see that none had been inflicted. There was still a weird scent to the open grotto they'd landed in, but before he could turn to suss it out—

“It's going to take me a long time to rebuild those,” a throaty voice _tsk_ ed, making the majority of Harlock’s group scream like banshees. With all the excitement, no one had noticed the actual presence behind them. Not even Harlock. And that was shameful.

The Elder whipped around with a predatory hiss as he snatched the torch from Niko and held it out, corralling Jenner behind his back as he drunk the features of the ancient demon sat atop a rock throne in the middle stage of the circular room that had openings every metre or so apart. He was the very centerpiece of fear itself, his lengthy fangs protruding further than any pair Harlock had ever seen, the ancient spitting an overflow of endorphins from his mouth before turning back to address the eternal visitors.

Harlock wasn’t done listing his qualities, though. The ancient had tanned skin and the almond eyes of a Native American, long black hair that reached to his waist and a single garment of buckskin leggings on his lower half for clothing, his muscles toned and face vicious, with long and thick claws sharpening both his fingers and toes. His irises were black, but Harlock had the idea that they were probably supposed to be, and his coherence was vivid, smirking at them like a victorious and serpentine beast in the presence of his prey.

“Who the fuck are you?” Harlock demanded, an afterthought piercing through him that sparking conversation could potentially be the _worst_ choice to make, but he'd already said something before second thoughts had found the time to land.

The immortal male pursed his lips, cocking his head to the side to spit more saliva from his mouth and then straightening back against his chair, scratching his chin and furrowing his brow. “I don't know,” he finally said, his black eyes meeting Harlock’s one in a way that made the English Elder sick to the core.

“What do you mean? You don't know your own name?” Harlock asked in confusion, a flash of memory reminding him that Øvind had forgotten his name as well until Kyösti had “given it back to him.” Maybe forgetting your name was the last piece of the mindless monster puzzle, and you could never come back from that unprompted...but that was the Lost—this was another class of creature entirely.

“I had a name,” the ancient replied mystically, the tiniest raise of his shoulders displaying that he didn’t care either way. “No one has been around to say it back to me in a long time...I forgot,” he explained, spitting another wad of endorphins onto the rock slab under his feet, the contact making a sharp slapping sound that made everyone cringe.

Harlock was infinitely curious of that unheard of characteristic of his, but he wasn’t about to ask why he was salivating so much—maybe later. If they even survived this encounter. “What are you doing in these tunnels?” he asked, wishing he could turn and comfort his lover when he felt the indentations of ten nails digging into his back, but he couldn’t take his eyes off their company.

“What a stupid question,” the ancient laughed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and gesturing his hands around them as he said, “I built these tunnels.”

“ _You_ did?” Kyösti asked, offhandedly realizing that Øvind was cowering in fear over by the bottom entrance of the blocked stone slide.

“These are _my_ tunnels,” the ancient verified, snapping his fingers at Øvind and pointing a clawed index finger at his petrified form. “Come,” he instructed, the sudden compliance and shift of behavior alerting everyone around that a ridiculously powerful lure had just been administered.

Harlock was impressed that none other than Øvind had been affected, who was now shuffling over to the ancient in a daze—it was marvelous as far as lures go. Even esteemed Elders have trouble pinpointing their lure to one subject in a crowded space if they weren't within immediate grasp, their lure having more of a wide circular range that thereby encompassed everything near and around the intended target. The fact that this ancient could direct his lure to and isolate a single individual from a far distance while leaving the rest free of its clutches was as scary as it was inspiring.

The ancient grabbed Øvind by the chin when he was close enough and peered into his eyes, humming to himself and setting him free a moment later. “A dweller with a group of newcomers. Uncommon. You got lucky,” he said, gently pushing Øvind away from his throne to stumble back to the group as the lure was released.

Stacey reached out to reel him back in and passed him off to Kyösti, who wrapped him up in his arms shushed his jitters, and the ancient spent an unnerving amount of time staring at Stacey and Jet (with a knowing smirk that made their skin crawl) before he continued to speak.

“Can't say the same for most of my deranged house guests. Their condition is frightful,” he chuckled with a blood-curdling grin, his brow jumping up as he thoughtfully rubbed his face. “Permanent, too.”

“What are you?” Harlock muttered, the ancient’s eyes narrowing on his first, and then to the halo of fiery hair behind his shoulder.

“How’s the warlock?” he asked, said magical human jolting and peering at him in a bundle of nerves. “Still an owner of sanity?” he asked, referencing the influence the olde magic in the tunnels would have on such a creature.

“I’ve got a bit left,” Jenner bravely responded, stepping out from behind his vampire and showcasing all the courage he had to give.

“Commendable. Truly. The warlocks of history harnessed magic that could have taken over the world. Its unwavering presence down here after all this time is a testament to its power. In turn, your keeping of sanity is quite the testament of your own. Most would have lost it already,” the ancient praised, winking at the human before his vampire lover wrestled him back behind him. “I had these tunnels enchanted for my own comfort. So none who discovered them could ever tell of my existence. I wished only for privacy—I could not have predicted _so many_ children getting trapped down here,” he said honestly, uncaring of his company’s inclination to believe him.

“How long have you been down here?” Harlock asked in lieu of letting himself get discouraged by the ancient’s words, always a seeker of the “how” before the “why,” though that was coming.

“Yes, because I count the sun cycles,” the ancient quipped with a touch of wit, his primitive age proving that one could still harness comedic chops. “Since I built them,” he decided to say, thinking back to when that would have been. “Sometime after the lands stopped shifting, and oceans filled the gaps. I’ve gone up a few instances but not in a while.”

Harlock kept his gasp to himself and mulled over that piece of knowledge. If this ancient had been down here since the ending of the ice age, he'd missed the entirety of recorded history. “How do you speak English?” he then asked logically, that detail confounding his ability to make sense of him.

“I listen,” the ancient said creepily, jutting his chin up to the ceiling to show he meant the surface.

Harlock was astounded that this creature’s ears were sensitive enough to hear whispers from the Earth’s surface, and it was unsettling to know that he’d heard everything they’d been saying this whole time, but before he could respond with whatever intelligent phrase he would conjure, the ancient spoke first.

“Speaking of...what _is_ going on up there? I sense a disturbance,” the ancient said quizzically, feeling lucky to be able to ask newcomers of the mystery he’d pondered for 0.5 seconds before it had bored him.

“Pandemonium,” Harlock responded, cursing the fact that as the eldest of his group, he’d been automatically expected to do all the talking. He kept his poker face in check but he would have loved to be as speechless and unmoving as the Sparrows behind him.

“It would seem so,” the ancient mused with another sidelong spit, actually debating checking on the surface for the first time in...a decently large stretch of time. If interesting things were happening, he might not want to miss them. Who knows when the next bout of excitement would strike the planet?

“Are you…” Harlock began, pausing to huff in displeasure from what he was about to bring up. But he had to know. “Are you an original?” he asked, sensing the dread cast over all of his friends because he’d just asked the question they were likely all wondering in their own minds. He still had no proof of their existence, but he hadn’t thought the tunnels existed either, and Harry had almost convinced him with his utterances about his maker, so Harlock figured he’d check.

“What does this mean?” the ancient asked, his head cocking to the side in genuine curiosity, probably something he didn’t get to feel much.

“Did you have a creator,” Harlock asked tonelessly, watching every line of the ancient’s face as it morphed into amusement.

“That...is not something you would ever understand,” the ancient chuckled, spitting off to the side without taking his eyes off the vampire’s one.

“Where did you come from?” Harlock interrogated, his concept of known reality thrust into endangerment as a result of the ancient’s questionable response.

“...Not here,” the ancient said after some heavy consideration, staring unblinkingly at the group and letting them theorize what that meant.

“Okay,” Harlock accepted, moving things along without stopping to ingest the information because he didn’t have the mental power for that kind of thought train at the moment. “Does the...shit, does the name ‘Azazel’ mean anything to you?” he asked, backing up in fear when the ancient suddenly jumped out of his throne and stalked over to him, stopping just in front of his body and penetrating him with his blackened eyes, turned orange by their (somehow) still lit torch.

“Azazel,” the ancient hissed in recognition, looking Harlock up and down in perplexed wonderment. “Now that...that is a name I _do_ remember,” he confirmed, leaning in dangerously close to Harlock’s face and narrowing his eyes in newfound fascination. “ _How_ do you know of Azazel?” he asked, his eyes drifting over the other members of the group and discovering this one-eyed vampire and his warlock were the only ones that understood what the name Azazel implied.

“That would be the disturbance,” Harlock explained with a point to the ceiling, leaning back as far as he could get because this proximity to the ancient was drilling holes in his carefully constructed confidence.

“Ah,” the ancient quipped in understanding, finally backing off and strolling back to his chair of stone, sitting down hard and spitting as always before chewing on his knuckle in contemplation and murmuring to himself a statement that turned Harlock’s entire world irreversibly upside-down. “That does sound like my brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It all thickens. Hmmrmrphmrphm, brother? How? Really? Wow. But he's from America—Azazel is from Africa. How are they brothers? Theories? Lol jk, theories won't even be answered.


	4. Max Is Bored

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That tumblr anon that confided to me that my characters were too many and impossible to keep up with is gonna be really upset with all the names of the originals. Sorry, love. Better make a chart.

“ _That does sound like my brother._ ”

Time stood menacingly slow as the shock of that statement stilted every intelligent thought in Harlock’s group combined. Not only was he now nearly convinced that originals were indeed a real species, based on the inexplicable differences this ancient had apart from any other immortal Harlock had ever met, but to hear of his apparent relation to Azazel, their biggest enemy after Auron, was too much. Harlock had learned more horrifying facts within the last twelve hours than he’d ever thought possible in his Elder age...it was _too bloody much!_

“Did he say—”

“ _Brother_?” Harlock squeaked to finish Elijah’s question, darting his hand out and snatching Jenner’s wrist, both lovers panicking in the face of this most terrifying revelation. What did it mean for them? For the world?

“Mm...Mother never liked him,” the ancient sneered, throwing his head back in laughter as the pieces of the Earth’s emergency suddenly made complete sense. If Azazel was out there wreaking havoc, all of the questions he could have were now answered, and it was only a matter of time until it all came crashing down.

“You’re related?” Harlock demanded shrilly, trying to keep his tone in check and failing miserably. Like you could do better.

“We...came from the same place,” the ancient said cryptically, watching the children before him try futilely to comprehend what his words signified. He wouldn’t be explaining his origin to toddlers, that was for certain. “Don’t look so shocked, darlings. We’re all related in some way,” he said, his eyes once again moving over to the two women in each other’s arms.

“What do you mean?” Harlock asked for the hundredth time, having caught both times that the ancient had glanced at Stacey and Jet, furiously wondering what it was for.

“Ten strains of genetics from ten siblings isn’t much to spread the pool, is it?” the ancient reasoned, snorting (and subsequently spitting) at the vampires’ hopeless confusion. “For example,” he quipped, jabbing his finger over to the two women, bringing them into the spotlight as heads turned to look at them. “You two came from me,” he stated, returning his hand to his lap while their eyes widened in dumbstruck marvel.  

“Sorry, come again?” Harlock voiced, his confidence rebuilding because now he was more fascinated than terrified.

“Must I draw it with a claw in the stone?” the ancient bit in annoyance, rolling his eyes when his tone made the whole group jump back like startled cats. “You all came from one of us ten,” he explained simply, waiting for the tendrils of comprehension to settle in their slower minds. “Apart from the warlock, of course. He’s here naturally. As most of you once were, though not so much anymore, isn’t that right?”

“You’re saying every vampire on Earth has one of ten original ancestors?” Harlock asked to get it all down, the synapses in brain firing off like a nuclear reaction as he grappled with the knowledge of how very close in genetics they truly were. They couldn’t sense it themselves, probably due to generations of dilution, but the originals would undoubtedly be able to suss out their own genes in an instant.

“You catch on quickly,” the ancient mocked, snickering when his nephew vampire’s single eye narrowed in contempt.

Harlock had so much shit he wanted to say, for this was an experience not many would ever get to have, but he needed to keep the flow directed to their predicament or they’d talk for hours, and Jenner’s oxygen would be compromised. They were probably nearing the end of the first tank at this very moment, which gave them twelve more hours, and they needed to use those hours wisely. “Can you fight Azazel?” he asked seriously, watching the burst of pure amusement lighten the ancient’s features.

“Now why would I ever do that?” he asked with a smile, finding it rude on this group’s behalf to meddle in the affairs of their ancestors whom they had no business making requests of.

“He has my son!” Stacey snapped with a bold vigor she didn’t know she had, marching right up to the scary immortal and placing her hands on her hips out of habit, followed closely by the terror-stricken Jet as per usual.

The ancient rolled his neck over to address his impulsive children, pelting them with a glare that a strict parent would inherently give. “You think I have a passing _care_ for your son—”

“He’s an ancient. Well over two thousand years old,” Harlock interrupted because he could sniff out where that conversation had been going. And who’s to blame the original? If some four or five-day-old vampire came up to _him_ and started demanding he save their anonymous son, he’d scoff at them too.

The ancient, for the first time since he’d begun to turn the humans of Earth, was speechlessly dumbfounded. Absolutely no part of that claim made any logical sense, but the eyepatched child did not lie—he could smell the truth like a potent fragrance—and it challenged everything he knew. “How is this possible?” he surrendered his authority to ask, much more concerned with the answer he would receive than upholding a reputation of superiority.

“He was reincarnated. Remembers all of his past lives and his time spent in the otherworld. Regained his ancient Elder status upon turning by drinking his original immortal blood from his Elder lover who had waited centuries on his own and found him again by an impossible stroke of luck,” Harlock recounted, wondering if he was missing any important detail but deciding that was probably enough for now.

The ancient blinked his big black eyes in upending astonishment, his face blank and pensive as he trained his gaze on his feet. “That’s not supposed to happen,” he murmured in fascination, pointedly ignoring the sputters of bewilderment his comment had brought upon his visitors. He began to chuckle as his brow visibly furrowed, a smile creeping onto his lips that fully displayed when he snapped his head back up to address the refreshingly unique group of children in his midst. “Alright...you have my attention.”

“We need to get to England,” Harlock stated bluntly, the green light of the ancient’s interest opening the floodgates to voice their predicament.

“England?” the ancient repeated with an arch of his left brow, prompting a further explanation because he couldn't be held accountable for not knowing the new names of the civilized nations in society. He knew the terms America, Canada, and Mexico, and that was about it. He was more familiar with their historical titles.

“Britannia?” Harlock tried again, hoping that would incite some recognition. “Group of islands across the eastern ocean?”

“Oh,” the ancient laughed, his face scrunching when he fully grasped their destination. He'd been on the surface around the world out of boredom a few times, and that certain place was disgusting. “Ew.”

Harlock disregarded the needless insult of his homeland and worked with what little understanding they had formed. “Do these tunnels go under the oceans?” he asked, mentally crossing his fingers that they did.

“Not _these_ ones, no. But the first ones do,” the ancient specified, laying his right ankle over his left knee to form a triangle, a term he'd learned from the snippets of ‘mathematics’ he would occasionally pick up on.

“The first ones?” Harlock paused to inquire, having experienced unending waves of confusion since setting foot on Mount Wood.

“My brothers and sister and I constructed the deepest of the tunnels together, in a place where liquid fire reigns over cool stone—”

“Holy shit, the asthenosphere,” Jenner breathed, quickly asking someone for a water bottle and taking a few hearty gulps before giving it back. “That's below the Earth’s crust,” he explained to anyone who may not know, amazed that such a place could even exist in that kind of climate. “How did you do it?” he asked the ancient, who gave an unhelpful shrug in return.

“They did most of the work themselves. I'm the youngest. It had a lot to do with hardening...lava into stone with the ice warlocks to make shined black halls that blocked the heat,” he rambled, his memory impossibly foggy from events _that_ far back in time.

“Obsidian,” Jenner mused in impressed appreciation, his undying love for sciences having followed him throughout his life. As an example of something science could not explain, he'd become fascinated by the many number of things it could—things he never would have discovered had he been raised fully as a warlock. The grass is always greener on the other side, so they say.

“Wouldn't it still be too hot for Jenner?” Stacey asked worriedly, her most prominent concern having been Jenner’s livelihood this whole time.

“No, we’re in the lithosphere right now. Technically, it should already be too hot for me,” Jenner explained, turning his gaze back to the unnamed ancient. “But magic is blocking heat out here too, isn’t it?”

“How perceptive,” the ancient replied, his neutrality making Harlock’s group wonder if he was actually impressed or just sassy.

“And magic blocks the asthenosphere’s temperature too?” Jenner asked hopefully, one thing to cross off the list of dangers if it were true.

“Not nearly as much as here. I’m afraid it would still be rather uninhabitable for a creature with your level of fragile vitality,” the ancient informed, antsy to see the warlock’s imminent turning take place if they saw no other way. It was always entertaining to watch magic die.

“He’s coming out as a human,” Harlock asserted, truthfully wondering if Jenner could at this point.

“Unfortunate,” the ancient pouted, deciding not to push the matter and go with their only other option. “In that case, I’ll need to take him,” he said, staring in bemusement when the eyepatch child angrily flailed his limbs and stood in front of his warlock—an action he’d done now a countless amount of times.

“What the hell does that mean?” Harlock demanded, resisting the urge to bare his fangs because that was a show of aggression, and that kind of behavior would get him nowhere with this ancient, and likely just piss him off. Or make him laugh. He hated the idea of both.

“I can put that human into a realm of sleep wherein he wouldn’t need much air, and would be more or less guarded from the harsh atmosphere, and only I can do it,” he stated, baiting the warlock’s lover to the nth degree because causing chaos was deliciously enjoyable. He wasn’t lying, though—if these vampires wanted their warlock to maintain his identity, they would need his help.

“The terms?” Harlock asked reluctantly, wanting to hear them out before making any kind of decision.

“The what?”

“What would you need to do it?” Harlock reiterated, making a mental note to use less regional terms around someone who’d only learned English from eavesdropping—though his eloquence with the language was stunning.

“My endorphins in his bloodstream, my lure in his brain, and his body in my arms at all times,” the ancient listed, smirking at the child’s face when it contorted with possessive fury.

“ _Absolutely n_ —”

“Harlock,” Jenner chimed in disapproval, shushing him before the ancient could decide to revoke the offer entirely. “I accept,” he told him, punching Harlock in the stomach when he scoffed in a myriad of defensive and offended emotions.

“Wonderful,” the ancient said tonelessly, clapping his hands together to engage their journey. “It was lucky you all found me. I wouldn’t have come to you, and without me, you never would have left. Lucky especially, for _you_ , my dear,” he said to Øvind, who had acquired a sliver of confidence and was able to look him straight-on without flinching.

“Which way?” Stacey asked determinedly, her and Jet tensed in preparation and ready to run.

The ancient smiled at his direct (many lines down) descendants and stood languidly from his chair, turning on his heel and pointing to one of the openings behind him. “That one.”

Harlock spent a moment on replacing Jenner’s withering oxygen supply with a fresh one, instructing him to hold his breath while he stuck the cannula on a new tank and tossed the other one with an unbelievably loud clang against the rocky floor. He then stood and lifted Jenner into his chest, focusing on the entrance that the ancient had addressed. If the grotto was a clock, this passage was on the eleven-hour mark, and they unanimously crossed over to it as the ancient waited patiently.

Once everyone was stood around him obediently like a group of students, the ancient grinned and passed through the opening of the tunnel, his voice echoing around them as he purred, “Follow me.”

 

\---

 

Luckily no Losts made an appearance because the ancient was using routes they would never find, so Harlock was glad about that—but after roughly ten minutes of snail-paced walking, wherein Harlock had frequently voiced his dissatisfaction of their travels and been brushed aside, he was now furious. He suspected the ancient was purposefully egging him on to the point of explosive rage so that he could up and change his mind about helping Jenner, and Harlock excruciatingly kept his violent impatience under the knife, refusing to fall prey to smug taunts.

The only information the ancient had given was that the “pass to hell” as he liked to ironically call it wasn't far off, so a peaceful stroll would not hinder their time. Harlock disagreed, but it is what it is.

Jenner was marinating in the time he had left in his lover’s arms anyway, not exactly looking forward to being handed off to their ancient guide. He’d agreed without a second thought but that had been an obvious solution—now, having thought about what it entailed, it was a bit more nerve-racking. He would be bitten by an original, and probably like it _a lot_ , and Harlock had to watch. Just the thought of that moment felt like a betrayal to their love, and he knew Harlock was thinking the same thing.

Harlock was valiantly coming to terms with what Jenner would undergo at the hands of the ancient. He knew Jenner would feel bad about his instant reaction to the physical effect of original endorphins, something that to his knowledge, only Hadrian and Auron (out of anyone he could possibly name, though he wondered about Louixander) had experienced, but he really didn’t want Jenner fixated on that. His human body, even as a warlock breed, would do what it would do, and Jenner was at the unforgiving mercy of that. He couldn't even imagine what it would feel like, so he would accept any result from the highly susceptible Jenner.

Jenner flung his hand up to land on Harlock’s face, sliding his palm across his cheek to take in his features and savour the feeling. This nonpresent state he’d soon be in was an incredibly vulnerable one, and he didn’t like the idea of not knowing what was happening for their entire journey under the ocean. Although, if what he’d heard about the scarce amount of magic that clung to those deeper walls was true, he knew he wouldn’t want to be awake either. It just didn’t sit well that anything could happen to him and he wouldn’t ever know unless brought back to consciousness, and it just...he knew Harlock would fight to the death for his safety, but it just…

“I love you,” Harlock murmured sweetly, yanking him out of his turmoil like he’d been caught in a fishing net and dropped on the boatdeck. “I won’t let anything hurt you,” he reminded obviously, ducking down to nuzzle their noses together and give him a short but meaningful kiss. “I’ll be with you the whole time, okay?” he whispered, nodding along when Jenner did and grinning in comforting contentment.

“I love you too, Harly,” Jenner reciprocated, his hand coming back to hold his cannula down over his nose and breathe in the oxygen to calm the tightening in his chest and throat.

Another staircase appeared and Jenner closed his eyes, relaxing in the embrace of his favourite arms and zoning out as Harlock stepped deeper and deeper into the Earth. Not a lot of humans could say they’d been through the asthenosphere and mantle of the planet, and it was definitely a deed for the records once they were out, but he couldn’t be too overjoyed with it at the moment—the heat was slowly starting to get unbearable, and that meant detaching from Harlock sooner than he’d expected.

“Here, sweetie. You look like you could use this,” Stacey said as she presented him the water bottle, staying true to her reputation as the vampire Mother Theresa.

“Thanks, Ma,” he croaked, the familiar term having been utilized by nearly everyone at Harlock’s house, downing a third of the water and then grudgingly handing it back before he'd finished it off. He didn't know how many were left and he didn't want to ask.

“You're welcome, Jenny,” she cooed, returning the plastic bottle to Niko’s bag and patting the Sparrow on the back for being helpful, regardless of him already being wholefully willing. “Hey, ancient one?” she addressed as she fluttered down the steps to approach him.

Said ancient one looked over his shoulder and shot her an amused expression, purring out a low and sultry, “Yes?”

“I feel bad that you forgot your name,” she said sadly, clearing her throat nervously for the next part. “Can I give you a new one?”

The ancient held her gaze and a friendly smile slowly morphed to cover his predatory one, shrugging with ease and crossing his arms in intrigue. “What do you suggest?”

“Uh,” she stuttered, having not thought that far before she'd brought it to his plate. “Max?” she offered off the top of her head, a twinge of embarrassment taking over when an unknown member of the Sparrow family flicked the back of her neck.

“Why not?” Max said breezily, causing a chorus of chuckles to reverberate through the group. “I'll be Max for you.”

“Nice to meet you, Max. I'm Stacey. Your great-great-great-great—”

“Stacey, hunny, I don't think we could count back that far,” Jet cackled, snaking her arm around her love’s waist and swooning over how lucky she'd been to be the creator of the most beautiful woman on Earth. How she wished Harry hadn't ripped Troy apart before she could.

“No need to count. Though separated by a lengthy genetic line, you're still my daughter. Both of you are,” Max affirmed, giving them a wink and turning back around to watch where he was going, enamoured by the radiance of their torch and the kind of colourful art it painted on the chamber.

“I think it's fantastic to meet my vampire Father,” she gushed, easily making the best impression on the original so far.

“Where did I come from?” Harlock found himself asking, unable to help himself around the encyclopedia of things he hadn't ever thought to wonder.

“Cináed,” Max said abruptly, relenting to give only a spattering of detail to the perplexed child. “Dweller of Europe, that’s all I know,” he lied, forcing the topic to drop with his tone because he didn’t intend on gossiping about his family to those undeserving of extensive knowledge.

“And me?” Kyösti inquired, Max sniffing behind him without a spared glance.

“You, your whole family, and the trapped child came from Ráðspakr—dweller of the...I forget the word…” he trailed, having lost interest the moment his train of thought had veered off the tracks.

“Dweller of...Scandinavia?” Elijah prompted, scratching at his scalp in cluelessness. It seemed like a given, but he wasn’t one to assume—especially lately.

“Whatever the Nordic vikings were,” Max said boredly, rolling his eyes when the group dumbly mumbled their hums of understanding. “I will say nothing more of your heritages. I never wanted to discuss such a thing anyway,” he informed, thrusting the group into a docile silence that only he harnessed the power to incite. “How’s the warlock?” he asked to Cináed’s descendant, focused on his every physical aspect regardless.

“He’s overheating,” Harlock lamented, gazing studiously at his suffering human as he stepped off the end of the seemingly never-ending stairs into another arid hallway, devoid of life-sustaining oxygen.

“We’re nearly there. Give him to me,” Max instructed, turning where he stood and beckoning the couple over to him.

Meanwhile, everyone pooled out at the foot of the stairs and spoke to each other in hushed tones, conscientiously masking the private matter they would all catch every detail of no matter what. Stacey helped Jenner drink a little bit more water and then backed off to Jet, who ran her hands through her hair and commented on her starry eyes that glowed like marbles in the light of the torch—the general romantic couple jargon.

“Don’t worry,” Jenner rasped to a Harlock who could not do anything but, trying to soothe him with rubs from his weak and shaky arms and consequently making Harlock’s concern for him worse.

“Pay my emotions as little mind as you can, babe. Just relax,” Harlock requested with a parting kiss to Jenner’s cracked lips, transferring him into the awaiting arms of _Azazel’s brother_ and resisting all urges to snatch him back after handing off his backpack too. “Love you, Jen. We'll be out of here in no time,” he said with attempted confidence, giving Max a look that silently said they had _better_ be.

Max smiled and sat all the way down, his back against the tunnel wall and his knees bent upward to trap the cradled human between his chest and thighs. “Are you comfortable?” he asked the nervous wreck of a warlock, cooing when he received the most unsure nod he'd ever seen.

“I am,” Jenner tried again, throwing an irrefutable verdict into the assertion to come across as ‘stronger than he was two seconds ago.’ He knew it convinced no one, but he hoped his attempt of full acceptance would be somewhat appreciated.

“Look into my eyes,” Max said persuasively after spitting off to the side, already blanketing his subject with gentle fractions of his lure before the intense part would violently take him over. “Once I take from you, you will fall deep into the land of dreams, unnoticing of your surroundings, unnoticing of your environment, and impartial to anything outside that realm,” he ordered softly, speaking in absolutes to more or less hypnotize his human mind into compliance.

“Okay,” Jenner said cooperatively, ensnared in a trance so powerful that nothing in the world existed outside the cage of Max’s arms.

“You will not rouse until I bring you back, and you will feel no discomfort whatsoever. Not from the heat of the environment, and not from the lack of breathable oxygen. Your breathing will slow, as will your heartbeat, and you will be protected,” Max finished, carding a presumptuous hand through the warlock’s curly hair because he had not given affection in well over hundreds of years, having discovered it was 1973 when he'd overheard eyepatch’s informative voice say so, and it felt good to caress the skin of an unawakened. That was a term he and his siblings had long since pinned onto humans. Every last one of them had a powerful immortal inside them—it just needed to be created.

Jenner could not find it in himself to respond with words this time, simply nodding to show he’d understood the ancient’s words and curling his fists into the long strands of Max’s jet-black hair.

Max grinned down at him and let his steady flow of endorphins gather in his closed mouth, swiping a hand over the warlock’s wide eyes to close them as he tilted his chin back to expose his neck. He then dove in with a starved enthusiasm and sunk his lethal fangs all the way down to his gums, hissing immediately and injecting a formidable amount of coercive chemicals into the bite that coursed throughout the warlock’s entire body in an instant. The human made only one sharp cry of overwhelming pleasure before he was forced into unwakeable slumber, his hands falling lifelessly onto his own stomach as Max continued to drink down his potent and magical blood.

Harlock had squeezed his eye shut the moment Jenner’s blissful sound had erupted from his throat, but now it was fully opened and devoted to Max’s drinking, growing unfathomably frustrated that he seemed to be taking his sweet time with _his_ lover. He let out an automatic hiss at being threatened and Max snapped his black eyes open to stare up at him challengingly, surrendering his prey when he noticed how regretful the eyepatch appeared at having done that. Some things could not be helped, and Max understood this well.

He effortlessly stood with the limp human against his chest, inclining his head to the side and waiting for all the awkward bystanders to regroup beside eyepatch and himself. “What’s this beauty’s name?” he asked said beauty’s vampire, deciding he’d like to know the name of blood so flavourful.

“Jenner,” Harlock growled unintentionally, coughing once to dispel the urge to snarl and try for a more personable tone. “His name is Jenner—and I’m Harlock,” he added just to bring importance to himself, of the opinion that if Max wanted to be on first name basis with his precious Jenner, then he would be with Harlock too.

“My pleasure, Jenner and Harlock,” Max said, considerately hiding the stroke of his thumb against the back Jenner’s knee from Harlock’s wildly possessive and tormented eye. “Shall we travel beneath the long Atlantic stretch of the world?” he suggested, smirking at his wary but determined company.

“After you,” Harlock grumbled, chasing after Max immediately when the original sped off without a second word, valiantly matching his pace so his unknowing Jenner would never escape the scope of his vision. Everyone else scrambled to keep up, but Harlock had no fears for them falling behind—anyone insufficient enough to mirror them would be assisted by those who were.

It didn’t take them long to fly down one more case of stairs and into a hallway of a different variety than anything they’d seen so far, and it was breathtakingly gorgeous. Harlock snagged the torch from Niko once more and held it up to the slippery walls of their path, the gleam of black and other saturated minerals creating more sparkle than he ever thought he could handle. Jenner had called this obsidian, and Harlock was sure he’d heard the term somewhere before that as well, but it had stuck with him since Jenner had mentioned it.

He almost wished his warlock could be awake to see the beauty of this, but he made sure to note every little detail so he could report the full experience to him later. For now though, they needed to run. They needed to run as fast as they could under a bloody ocean to get to his homeland to somehow go from there to save Harry and Louis from ‘immortal destruction’ as it were, and although he’d almost lost all hope of that ever happening an hour ago, this new development had brought it back in full swing. They would save them no matter what—and not only because they were essential in taking the world back from those that sought to own it, but because they knew without a doubt that those Elders would do the same for them. And then some.

 

\---

 

After an exceptionally boring stretch of straightforward traversing, with Stacey’s flashlight guiding the way after the torch had called it quits, Harlock decided to fill the silence with a conversation he’d been planning in his head the whole way through, wondering how he could bring it up respectfully and relevantly. It didn’t look like the last word could be applied, but perhaps he could take it chances with the first. “You’re obviously a vampire,” he began to Max on his left, meeting his curious eyes before setting his trusty one back on the path.

“Right…”

“Well, disregarding the fact that you’ve recently taken Jenner’s blood, I noticed you had a heartbeat the whole time before that too. You’ve been alive...how?” he asked, turning to glare at Max when he laughed in that iconically pretentious way he seemed to fancy. Max and Alexander in a battle of attitude would likely crack the Earth in two.

“It is unfortunate they are not crowning the asker of the most stupid questions; you would be King.”

Take that back. It would crack the universe in two. “I resent that,” he muttered, yearning for a simple explanation that wasn’t laced in condescending sarcasm.

“It’s _your_ hearts that stop, my dear. Not ours. We are alive—this is our natural species. That we _gave_ to you. Though I must admit, we did not expect such dire results to stem from passing on our genes,” Max said sincerely, catching the rampant attention of everyone in their tightly formed lines.

“Dire results?” Harlock repeated, his fascination reaching higher levels than ever before in the face of learning the secrets of his kind.

“You died. All of you. You’re too weak for us. No human on Earth is strong enough to withstand our flood of genetics, and our blood instantly kills you. We were concerned at first, but instead of perishing like you should have, you stuck around. Caught somewhere between the lines of life and death—it was astounding. You stayed here as lifeless immortals, perpetually pining over that which gives you life—that which took it away in the first place—blood. The blood of what you once were. Just to feel _normal_ again. Me, I’m always normal. I need nothing from this world, and though my body will not age, my living heart is always beating. Does that answer your question?” he laughed, that laughter growing louder when he caught the gawks of not only Harlock, but everyone behind them as well.

“So why do you have fangs and endorphins if you don’t need blood for anything?” Harlock asked aside from all the other things he could, preferring to get everything out of the way before deep rounds of contemplation.

“Don’t get me wrong, blood is delicious. It’s fun to drink—to engage in lascivious activities. We have chemicals in our mouths to subdue our human prey and give them pleasure while we do it. It’s all just to turn them while they helpfully beg for it and make them enjoy their physical time with us. Quite clever, really,” he mused, hiking Jenner up in his arms and allowing himself a few moments of smug satisfaction that he’d enacted that particular gift onto a human after such a long time of coincidental abstinence.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Harlock finally groaned in awe, his mind racing with the overflow of facts he never would have learned at any other point in his existence had they avoided the caves and tunnels. He would thank Kyösti in another hundred years or so—he was still beyond furious.

“Believe it,” Max replied flippantly, happy to bestow the truth onto an Elder that had likely lived a long time wondering what it might be.

“I don't understand you. You won’t tell us where you came from, or why you’re even here in the first place, but apparently there are ten of you...you spread your genes but accidentally killed all the experiments, making us what we are today and always have been; you are alive and have the senses of an omniscient God, your physical traits are unlike anything I’ve ever seen, spewing endorphins like a faucet...you don’t even remember your name you’ve hidden yourself away for so long, and you’re choosing to help us? _Us_? Why?” he asked logically, figuring that if he were some all powerful being, he likely wouldn’t lift a finger to help a bunch of children, even if the fate of the world could stand to (possibly) benefit from it.

“I’m bored, Azazel is a nuisance to me, and you have a compelling story,” Max said bluntly, shrugging his shoulders and Jenner with them.

“Suppose that’s true, how far would this help go?” Harlock asked curiously, his eyes instinctively falling to Jenner’s slack face that hung over the back of Max’s arm. He wished to kiss those parted lips more than anything, but he didn’t want to get too close to Max either. _Fine._

“What do you mean by ‘far’?”

“Well...if you lead us to the surface, and we happen to desperately need you again someday, could we call for you? Would you let us find you again?” he specified, crossing his fingers on the furthest hand away.

“Hmm...yes,” Max finally said, causing a chorus of gleeful exclamations to shudder behind him. “Just for the mystery of this reincarnated ancient, I will remain in England for a time...once you’ve found him, I’d like to meet him. Be sure to bring him back down. If he can convince me of this otherworldly claim, I may even save your world for you,” he threw in, smirking at Harlock’s dumbstruck expression.

“Well that’s comforting,” the Elder said with a breathy chuckle, setting his sights forward and smiling to himself in relief. If both ends of this were held up, their troubles could be thwarted within a matter of days...theoretically. It might turn out that they need Max to find Louis and Harry in the first place, but if they happened to come across them by their own means, Harlock saw no issue with forcefully hurling Louis down into the depths of the tunnels for an introduction.

Silence fell and Harlock’s mind redirected to the place he didn't want it to go—the notion that this plan would inevitably fail; that they would be too late and the world would remain ensnared in the clutches of an army they couldn't defeat. But most of all if they would save their most cherished friends from a dark fate they couldn't even stomach to conceptualize.

Harry, Louis, Martin, and Tanner.

No one truly knew what condition their friends would be in when they were found, or what kinds of disadvantages they were currently drowning in and would face in the future. Yet some things were still for certain no matter the odds, and the most prominent example is this: those two impossible lovers would destroy the fabric of reality before they lost one another again. Since this reality still existed, Harlock was willing to bet they were both still here. Furious, highly confrontational, and perhaps even a bit terrified, but undeniably here.

 

~~~

 

“Oh my God, Erakus—right there! Fuck me!” Marley screeched, his fists gripping the sheets so hard they began to tear. They’d been going at it for a decently long time and the climax of the event was rapidly approaching.

“Yeah? You like it when I fuck you?” Erakus grunted, pounding into his lover with all his might and digging his claws into his hips.

“Ngh! You know I do,” Marley groaned, every breath he tried to take stifled when Erakus’s thrusts stole the air from his gasping lungs. “ _Fuck_!”  

“I’m gonna come, baby,” Erakus warned, trying to control the impending storm because he wanted Marley to come first. “Will you do it for me?” he purred, leaning his head back to face the ceiling with eyes closed in bliss as he fucked into his trembling lover.

“I’m—almost there,” Marley panted, the butterflies in his stomach fluttering down to his groin while his cock leaked in anticipation. “Yeah, I— _oh God_ ,” he moaned, a mere two seconds away from release when Erakus suddenly froze behind him, the pause dragging him away from the edge of the cliff as he blinked in confusion. “What the _fuck_ , Erakus—”

“Shh!” Erakus hissed, removing his claws from Marley’s skin and resting his hands down on the curve of his arse against his pelvis. “Do you...do you smell that?” he asked, tasting the air and inhaling as deep as his physical exertion would allow. 

“Do I wha…” Marley trailed, finally gaining enough sense to detect what Erakus was referring to. He didn’t want to get his hopes up but it smelled like...like Harlock and Jenner. 

“That’s my family,” Erakus gasped, yanking himself out of Marley and rolling off the bed to throw on his clothes. 

Marley whined in disappointment from the sudden loss and smacked Erakus hard across his wild hair, punishing him for stopping so abruptly. It wasn’t his fault, and smelling their group was indeed a dream come true after so much stagnant and untreated distress. It was everything they’d been praying for since hanging up that phone call, yes, but this blue balls was _real_. “You can’t just leave me like this,” he whimpered, his body leaning back over the cliff that he couldn’t jump himself.

“Are you serious? There are more important things right now; they’re literally almost here!” Erakus snapped, taking one look at his teary-eyed lover and surrendering to his desperation. “Fuck— _fine_!” he relented with his acquired trousers around his thighs, falling onto his knees and pulling Marley by the hips to sit on the edge of the bed as he spit endorphins onto his palms.

“Thank you,” Marley said shakily, crying out when Erakus’s endorphin-coated hands and sinful lips wrapped around his cock and worked their warlock-like magic on his neglected shaft.

Erakus did his job like he was getting timed for it (because he was), twisting his wrists in opposing directions and bobbing his head up and down in earnest, his tongue swirling circles under the head of Marley’s cock because he was on track to make him come, and this would instantly do the trick.

Marley’s squeaks got louder and higher with each downward pump, his head thrown back as his hand curled into Erakus’s hair. The time came when he couldn’t take it anymore, leaping off the long-awaited ledge and sighing low in his throat as he spilled into Erakus’s warm mouth.

Erakus pulled off with a pop and spit the substance out on Marley’s chest with the high-pressured spray of a whale, slapping him hard across the face in irritation as he scrambled to finish dressing himself.

“What the fuck was that for?” Marley laughed, looking down at his dripping frame and grimacing at the gross state of himself.

“For wasting time!” Erakus snapped, tripping to the door as he put his second shoe on, bursting through the room without Marley and sprinting down the hall, breaking through a focused Zayn and Niall and soaring over the staircase, forcefully pushing an alert Liam aside en route to the front door.

“Are they really here?” Niall screeched, furiously buttoning his shirt and getting on only one sock before stumbling and faceplanting onto the floorboards while Zayn busted up in laughter. 

“I think so, Niall!” Marley’s voice echoed from the bathroom, where he had just turned on the creaky pipes of the water reserves to use the shower. 

“What’s that smell?” Liam demanded as he was mindlessly knocked into a wall by an impatient Erakus, having noticed the scent and immediately been stricken with defensive energy.  

“It’s ours!” Erakus then replied to Liam as he finally got his fist around the door handle, zooming through the threshold and sharply veering his avid body eastward, slamming each foot down after the other toward the scent of home. He didn’t know if Liam would choose to follow him or not, Zayn and Niall were likely a few short apologies to Liam on his behalf away, and he knew Marley was probably furiously washing him off and getting dressed to come after him, but he wouldn’t wait for anyone. Not for this.

The scent got impossibly stronger the closer he got to a group of trees across the stretch of classic Falmer fields, and when he saw the moving outlines of his people, he yelled out nonsensically, their mirrored shouts of glee covering his own.  

“Erakus!” Elijah roared in relief, him and his brother dwarfing everyone else’s speed as they leapt through the air to tackle him.  

They blasted out of the trees and then the moonlit forms of Susanna, Kaisa, his parents and grandparents, one unfamiliar immortal, and Harlock with a tired Jenner in his arms appeared right after them. Erakus gave them all his happiest grin until the airborne bodies of his brothers collided with his own, knocking him straight down into the tall grass as they sobbed into his chest. “Eli! Niks!” he whined with heavy emotion, smashing them against his chest in a fury of elation.  

“Erakus!” Veronica bellowed angrily, causing her other sons to back away from Erakus as he stood in trepidation. “It's wonderful to see you, darling. How lovely it is to feast my eyes on your pretty face...but do you have _any idea what we just_ _went through to get here_?” she growled as she painfully grasped Erakus’s lower jaw, glaring into his wide eyes and hissing in contempt. “Never cross an ocean without telling us _ever again_!” she commanded, her worry for her son only translating to anger so he wouldn't forget.  

“I promise,” Erakus vowed out of fear, blinking rapidly when his Mother began to cry as she wrapped her arms around him. “Stacey, is that you?” he suddenly breathed in shock, staring between the immortal Mother of Louis and her incorrigible lover Jet in fear over what Louis would do when he found out they’d tagged along. 

“You try stopping her,” Harlock muttered, the woman in question waving sheepishly as a low rumble of chuckles were heard throughout the group. 

Zayn and Niall made their sudden appearance and ran straight to Harlock and Jenner, giving them the most gentle group-hug they could to mind the warlock’s fragile skin and all-around demeanor. They equally questioned Stacey’s presence, but after everything that had evidently happened, they decided not to ask. 

While Veronica was still crying into him, Erakus locked eyes with Harlock, glancing down at Jenner and then back up to him, trying to gauge what the fuck could have given the warlock that condition. “What the hell happened to you guys?” he asked, all faces turning toward him and then down toward their feet. Erakus met the confused with Zayn and Niall, and all three of them were about to demand answers when Kaisa’s sassy voice perforated the air. 

“What _didn't_ happen?” she grumbled with a flip of her long black hair, her sister rubbing at her tired face, the whole of their group looking like they'd just come from the throes of war.  

“Whatever you can imagine, it's worse,” Harlock finally said, his eyes zooming in on the amusing sight of Marley speeding his way through the grass in nothing but pants, his hair soaked as though he'd just crawled out of a lake.  

“Sorry I'm late,” the Aussie heaved as he finally reached the group, shaking his hair and expelling some of the shower water that clung to it. “What in the fuck took you so long?” he asked, propping his forearm onto Erakus’s shoulder.  

“Just get us inside. We’ll explain when we can sit down,” Harlock said as Jenner weakly waved at Marley to say hello.

“Follow us,” Marley said as he and Erakus took off toward the house, their tardy and battered friends sluggishly running after them.

Liam met them at the door and voiced a myriad of greetings as each immortal crossed the threshold, his welcoming voice catching in his throat when he got a look at the last to enter—the weirdly scented immortal with pitch black eyes and a feral air about him. He pushed through his confusion and gave him a smile, guiding the herd to the living room as his vampires dispersed and gave everyone a seat.

“Before we talk, I need to put Jenner to bed,” Harlock said foremost, cradling the sickly human in his arms and gently bouncing him like an infant. He’d gone through more than any human should ever have to and rightly deserved a lengthy episode of natural and comfortable slumber. Keywords _natural and comfortable_.

“Johnny, show them to a room, sweetheart,” Liam said to his focused lover, smiling when Johnny hopped to the task and politely directed them out of the room and to the stairs.

Harlock and Johnny returned about a minute later and the eyepatch immortal shuffled into a chair, sitting down and dramatically sighing as he soaked in the first few moments of actual peace.

“How did you get here?” Erakus asked from in-between his parents, his Mother having refused to let him go after sitting on the couch beside him.

How indeed. After crossing the straight-shot of the gorgeous but hellish obsidian tunnels, Max had announced they were under England as per request, and he’d coaxed Jenner out of his lure once they’d climbed high enough to the surface that the human would be able to breath on his own. Upon waking, Jenner had drunk all their water and eaten all the snacks, and rasped out that if Harlock ever made him do something like that again, he was breaking up with him.

After saying their temporary goodbyes to the original they'd named Max (who had shared a familial parting group hug with his two beautiful daughters), and resting enough to get their strength back, the trialed group had crawled their way through the caves and caverns near the English coast and waited in a shallow cavity for sunset. Jenner had passed out the second he could, and then they’d sprinted to Falmer like their existences depended on it. You know the rest.

“Harlock?” Zayn asked warily when nothing was said, each involved immortal deep in thought and completely unresponsive to the question because apparently nobody wanted to talk about it. He shared another worried glance with Niall and debated cracking down on receiving explanations immediately, but Harlock took that time to break the silence...he definitely didn’t expect to hear what he did, though.

“Ever heard of the legend of the Anticus tunnels?” Harlock mused to the ceiling, his skull heavy against the back of his chair because unlike Jenner, he hadn’t slept a wink as they’d waited in the caves for the sun to go down.

Liam automatically snorted in bemusement at the preposterous insinuation, shaking his head and saying, “Those don’t exist,” before he’d even really thought about the fact that this group probably wouldn’t bring it up if that were true.

Harlock flinched in anger and snapped his head up straight, his one golden eye narrowed in annoyance as he pierced the vampire of the house with a loaded glare, challenging his doubt with a hardened tone that was going to be hard to deny. “You wanna fucking bet?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cuz Erakus was a sperm whale, get it? Shooting sperm like a whale? A SPERM WHALE? DO YOU UNDERSTAND? I kinda lost my shit over that. Just picturing that in my head gets me every time. Like Harry with a water bottle on stage status—in Marley's face! Ohhhh, gods. Alright Cináed is pronounced KINDA like Kenny. But fancier, and use a Scottish accent to do it. I'm not touching the others until they're relevant.


	5. We're In Deep Shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clears throat* I clearly love you all to pieces.  
> Also!  
> *clinks a champagne glass with Deidei*

Cold. That was how he felt. Which was weird because he usually didn't get cold, nor would he experience any particular aversion to it, but this kind of cold was unpleasant—empty. Hauntingly so at that, and he didn't know how long he'd been suffering in it but he clung to the sudden change with everything he had, a burst of warmth at the highest point below the surface beckoning him with a sweet and flavourful song.

Flavourful? Oh, it was blood. There was blood in his mouth. He suddenly remembered he had a bodily form and coerced the muscles in his throat to swallow the intoxicating warmth, its revitalizing perfection traveling down his throat and bringing the world back into focus. A world which he promptly began to realize he didn't want to be in.

He wrenched his eyes open and cranked his mouth away from the overturned vial—which shattered when its handler dropped it—gasping and grunting as he flinched away from the hands that slid up his cheeks and turned his face toward their owner. Auron, of course.

“ _There_ are those pretty eyes,” the Roman cooed, his body menacingly close and leaving almost no room between them.

Louis snarled at his captor twin in fury, testing his limbs and discovering he'd been pinned to the wall behind him by two heavy chains that stretched all the way from the adjacent walls, arms held straight out from his sides with metal cuffs snapped around his wrists, his ankles together but in the same condition. What a hassle.

Looking further at his surrounding environment only tipped the scales of his annoyance; the dungeon was eerily lit by a handful of oil lanterns on the walls, showcasing chains and cuffs all over the grimy floor, and it smelled strongly of mildew. It had an extraordinarily low ceiling, one rusted door across from him that clearly opened _into_ the room rather than away, and a bed in the right back corner that could have been brought over from the California jail cell—he hated to think about what it could be used for, but for now he had to focus on his current and most prominent concerns. “Did you really think chains could hold me?” he taunted with a sore and unused voice, straining against his binds to snap them from the neighboring cinderblock walls and falling short in surprise when they didn't budge.

“Did you really think I'd use regular chains?” Auron fired back in a low purr, smoothing his palms down Lexy’s forearms and tapping the Elder’s hairline with his own, annoyingly breathing in his scent and sighing in contentment.

“What is this?” Louis demanded, his every lick of power going into breaking free but it was no use—his immortal strength would not come. He'd been somehow stripped of it completely, and he’d never felt so useless. Not since his turning, anyway.

“Sunlight,” Auron informed with a devilish grin, stepping away from Lexy so he could watch the pointless struggling in full frame.

“Sunlight? How?” Louis groaned, never once giving up his feeble attempts to rip the chains out of the stone.

“Because you're not the only one with warlocks on your side,” Auron said smugly, calmly walking around the room in a wide rectangle, dragging his fingertips along the coarse brick walls that enclosed them.

That got Louis to stop. His heart sank at the mention of the species, and it didn't sit well with him that Auron was somewhat aware of Jenner’s existence. “How do you know of him?” he snarled, aware that he wasn't outing something Auron didn't already know—that statement had been loaded with malice.

“Please,” Auron snorted, strolling over as he pulled up a chair to sit down in a few feet away from Lexy, just out of stilted kicking range. “It is my pleasure to inform you that my vampires keep these tricky notebooks with them at all times, and there's always one to jot down all this neat information for me to find in the case of their demise. Hadrian's butler child destroyed the corpses at their house, but none of you thought to burn my vampires in the mountains by that waterfall, did you? I read _all about_ your little friends,” he crooned proudly, awaiting the disappointment that Lexy would momentarily display.

“Where's Hadrian?” Louis barked in resentment in lieu of a direct response, yelping when Auron leapt from his chair and annihilated his cheek with the blunt force of the back of his hand, the pain rippling into his skull and giving him a throbbing headache that he frankly didn't deserve.

Auron huffed and shoved his rage back down before he made everything worse, trailing his fingertips over the area he'd struck and arching his eyebrows sadly as he sighed in regret. “Somewhere you can't get to,” he said, dreading the persistent expression on Lexy’s face because that meant the King wasn't done whining, which in turn meant he'd have to lash out at him again.

“Is that some sort of challenge?” Louis scoffed, rearing his head back and unleashing a bellow that hurt his own ears. “ _HADRIAN_!”

Auron hissed and pelted him again, this time with a closed fist to his jaw. Blood spurted from his slack lips and dripped onto the floor, his weakened form unable to handle a punch that may not have had such an effect if he was without the drainage of _sunlight-infused metal_. _Of all the things._

Louis took a few seconds to bear with the pain, his eyes squeezed shut until he forced himself to open them, meeting Auron’s frustrated gaze and giving him a daring smirk that showcased his true Alexander spirit that Auron both hated and loved him for. “You hit like my Father,” he spat, turning his face to the closed metal door to try again regardless of the consequences. “ _Hadrian Aelius, where the_ _fuck are you_?!” he screamed, preemptively hissing at Auron when he growled and lunged for him.

Auron gripped Lexy’s sandy brown hair and knocked his skull back against the cinder blocks, diving in for his exposed neck and burrowing his fangs into the second scar he'd made on this body in Tahoe—the one that had been infuriatingly covered up by his twin.

Louis’ throat closed around a guttural moan and he melted into the pleasure, rasping out meek pleadings for Auron to stop, but he knew how useless it was to do so. And his body had other plans. The Aelius endorphins in his system and the soft, rhythmic padding at his crotch were dastardly sweet, and it wasn't long before he was guiltily coming, a blissful sigh unfairly trickling right into Auron’s ear to give him the ultimate satisfaction.

Auron released him and kissed up his neck, both hands sliding through Lexy’s soft hair to hold his head steady and keep those still vampiric fangs away from him. “That's my good boy. Let me see that sweet side of you, love,” he whispered in adoration, dangerously claiming his lips regardless of what the dethroned King could try to accomplish with his teeth.

As it were, Louis had nearly forgotten all about his own species, this feeling of weakness at the hands of Auron thrusting him right back to the blood club bathroom; to the jail cell; the basement under the Sparrows’ bedroom. Auron was now just as formidable as he’d been back then, because for all intents and purposes, Louis Tomlinson was a human again.

A human being feverishly kissed and unable to break away at that, but worse yet, a human that barely wanted to. He'd responded to Auron’s lips in a shameful way, his tongue darting out to meet the vampire’s as he moaned through his nostrils. Auron’s hands were running everywhere, and the aftershocks of his endorphins were turning Louis’ nerves into jelly, his body pliant and submissive in the Roman’s sinfully comforting embrace.

Their passionate kissing seemed to drag on endlessly, both moaning and sighing into the other’s mouth while Auron stimulated Louis’ groin with an adventurous thigh in-between his own. They lost track of time and anything but each other _until_ Louis finally came more into reality, the powerful effects of endorphins in his system lessening enough for him to realize what was actually happening. He grunted in vexation and hauled every speck of his energy into compliance as he gave a hearty struggle.

Auron allowed Lexy to go free, brushing his fingers over his own mouth and smiling victoriously. “Your lips are divine,” he chuckled, his mood at its highest high because with Lexy, he felt normal again. Like everything was right in the world, and he could let it go entirely to stay down here forever without a care.

“Yours are sickening,” Louis bit coldly, his attitude still in tact no matter what enjoyable assaults wracked his untrustworthy body.

“Really?” Auron asked skeptically, returning to his chair and letting Alexander pine for him from afar. “You tell Hadrian that too?”

Louis blanched at Auron’s ignorance, sputtering around a number of different responses before he finally chose one. “Not the _shape_ , you worm! The _intention_!” he corrected needlessly (because he knew Auron understood), just eager to get it out there that he did _not_ appreciate this dynamic, whether or not he sometimes seemed to. _Stupid Aelius genes._

“I think you like it,” Auron negated, his lips curled in a confident and lopsided smile, overlooking every gnaw of Lexy’s hateful words to focus on the important matters. His passion, for instance.

Louis groaned in exasperation, tired of having this same conversation over and over again with the hate of his life—how apt his twin was the yin to that yang. “When will you fucking learn that you're sick, Auron? You're completely delusional! So mentally ill that you can't differentiate reality from fucking fiction!” he shouted, gulping when Auron slowly stood and strode up to him with a diabolical air.

“You...you dare hang that over me!” he roared, snatching Lexy’s throat and holding it just tightly enough to compromise his breathing, but not cut it off completely. “Listen to me, you intolerable brat! I know myself better than anyone. I _live_ in here,” he stressed with a point to his forehead, slamming the hand back down on Louis’ shoulder as he dug his claws into his neck and made him squeak. “I am well aware of my disease, and what horrors it does to me. Where and when it manifests does not slip my notice, I've lived with it for nearly two thousand years, and it's not _here_ right now. You know damn well what we just shared wasn't fictitious. So don't go making baseless and inaccurate assumptions on something you know nothing about,” he vented, thinking twice and then slapping Lexy anyway when he let go of his throat.

“Baseless assumptions? Know nothing? Bullshit, I know enough,” Louis argued, his cheek stinging with the memory of Auron’s palm. “First of all, consent under the influence of endorphins is not fucking consent, and the fact that you think it is is proof that you're nuts. But let’s focus on your larger actions, shall we? You killed your own parents because you were a resentful bitch, murdered Hadrian’s lovers, _myself_ included, because you were such an _envious_ bitch...and I'm willing to bet that you slowly poisoned Trajan too because you are _such_ a _conniving_ _bitch_ ,” he accused, curious as how Auron might respond because he'd never gotten that suspicion verified.

“Call me a bitch one more time and I'll knock your fucking lights out,” Auron warned, quickly moving on before Lexy could offer a reply. “Those actions are more credited to good old mania than bitchiness, anyway. And is Trajan really a concern of yours? So _what_ if I did?” he challenged darkly, his eyes shining with an ignited flame of recollective violence he'd inflicted upon the weak.

“So do you expect me to feel sorry for you, or what you went through as a child? Do you think you're in a position where I would ever accept your excuses? Be on your side? The things your mind has driven you to do are unforgivable, and you can't even begin to pin your actions on that alone! The accountability ultimately rests with you, and you've proven yourself time and time again to be a fucking monster. There isn't one redeeming quality about you, and I'll never feel anything towards you but hatred—”

“Back up…” Auron began calmly, his face displaying true anger that exceeded well beyond the borders of his incorrigible wit that had Louis seriously considering the intelligence of his insults. “...you don't get to talk to me about my childhood. You...were not...there. You have no idea what you're talking about, Alexander. When it comes to my life, _never_ presume you do,” he said with terrifying conviction, close to losing his temper if Lexy took this blasted subject any further.

“Alright, fine,” Louis relented, backtracking his approach before he could really regret it. “Stay in denial. It's worked out so well for you, hasn't it? Look! You got me right where you wanted me,” he applauded without the claps, inclining his head to their unfair difference of advantages by means of sunlight chains and a sodding dungeon.

“This isn't where I want you,” Auron negated with a shake of his head, taking the bait of the topic change because that was best for both of them.

“And where would that be then?” Louis sighed, gasping when Auron pressed their fronts together and dipped his hands to grope at his arse.

“I want you astride my hips, Lexy,” Auron purred seductively, their pelvises crushed against each other’s with nowhere else to go. “I want you stretched around my oh so familiar cock while you moan my name to the stars,” he murmured just under Lexy’s jawbone, reveling in his frightened shivers as he breathed icily onto his goosebump-coated skin.

Louis had fallen uncharacteristically quiet because the realization had stabbed him like a dagger that if Auron were to try anything of that variety...he actually wouldn't be able to stop him. If Auron wanted it to happen, it would. And that was a game he could not dabble in playing.

“I love the fear in your eyes,” Auron chuckled, outright laughing at Lexy’s weak little flinch when he tried to caress his face. His heartbeat was beating like an adamant hammer and his blood rocketed through his veins, independently showing Auron just how strong his effect was on him. This would be fun. “Don't worry, Lexy,” he quipped with a patronizing pat on his head, strolling away from him and toward the door to leave. “I won't do it until you want me to.”

Louis knew speaking out was unwise, but he couldn't let Auron have the last word; at least not if it was going to be _that_. “I'll never want you to,” he promised, unnerved by the disbelieving stare he received as Auron turned from being halfway out the door.

“Hmph. We'll see,” the twin said, flashing his most dazzling grin and pulling the metal door closed after him with an echoing clang.

Louis dropped his head down in relief of solitude and stared hard at the floor splattered with a bit of his blood. He craned his neck both ways to inspect the mechanisms of the chains that bound him, feeling the thrum of sunlight radiance now that he could really focus on it. He tried three times to pull away but found that whenever the metal was pushed against his skin, his frail body’s exhaustion got progressively worse. He wasn't getting out of here anytime soon. _Hadrian, we're in deep shit._

 

~~~

 

Harry was walking along some incandescent channel by a sea, the roaring waves from afar knocking him back with an invisible force every time they capped over even though he was nowhere near the water. Likewise, when the saltwater duvets crept back into their vast body, Harry would be pulled forward like a puppet on strings. He was beginning to get frustrated with the push and pull effect a distant ocean was somehow having on his body, but he let go and went with the current when a certain smell entered his nose, completely overpowering the stale and brimey coastal air.

Louis. He would know this scent anywhere. It washed over him with a serene warmth the busy, freezing ocean couldn’t ever hope to offer, lifting him right out of the back and forth riddle and wrapping around his limbs like ribbons. Somehow he knew Louis was behind him, but the more he tried to look over his shoulder, the tighter the scent tendrils became, quickly nearing the point of painful. “Whoa, Louis,” he chuckled, trying once more to catch the sight of him when his throat suddenly choked on ocean water that he hadn’t drunk.

He struggled frantically to swallow or breathe, the pressure on his body increasing as did the internal panic, giving him a strong sense of claustrophobia he didn't know he had. “Louis!” he gurgled, trying now to run _away_ from the scent instead of toward, but that backfired just as hard.

More splashes of liquid filled his throat and his eyes burned with the need to breathe, a mysterious gong now being pounded nonstop by a faceless cat on the shore. This was a weird dream. “Louis!” he begged, flailing his arms and freezing when the scent closed in around him from all sides, a sweet and menacing voice much like his own murmuring a single word from some all-encompassing location, like there were hidden speakers levitating in the dense atmosphere.

“Wrong.”

Harry shot awake and instantly realized the ‘seawater’ had actually been a bag of bitter blood, and he spat his mouthful out in reluctant contempt because the most important factor to address here wasn’t his underlying desire for life—it was his Louis-scented brother three inches from his face.

“Top of the mornin’ to ya,” Auron lilted in a badly done Irish accent, a jubilant grin spreading his face as he purposefully wafted his arms around Hadrian’s body, forcing the scent of his lover to penetrate his very pores.

“Auron, you savage rapscallion!” Harry snarled, lurching forward and second-handedly realizing that he couldn’t move with his usual strength or speed. He quickly glanced at himself to suss out the problem and widened his eyes in surprise. _Well this is a nuisance._

“Why isn’t anyone ever happy to see me?” Auron cried theatrically, holding his fingertips to his forehead with an upturned face as though he were monologuing Shakespeare in a spotlight.

“What have you done to him, you slithering maggot?” Harry snapped to end Auron’s infuriating antics, propping his heels onto the stone wall behind him to get more leverage as he valiantly swung himself forward to free himself from this most tedious trap. _Chained like a fucking dog._

“Who? Wha— _ohh_ ,” Auron purred in fabricated ‘understanding,’ inhaling the front of his shirt and licking up his palm while he kept fearless eye contact with his brother. “Do you like my perfume?”

“Where is he, Auron?” Hadrian demanded, temporarily giving up the attempts to snap the chains because they were bloody strong and he was only getting weaker by the second.

“Still twitching from his orgasm,” Auron taunted, slowly waving the hand that had caused it under Hadrian’s nose to drive him mad. Technically that orgasm had happened rather close to the beginning of their encounter, but what Hadrian didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Wait...it totally would.

Harry roared like a lion and desperately tried to kick his leg out, finding the chain was too taught to give him much range and grunting from exertion as he struggled his hardest yet. His fangs were bared and he continuously hissed in Auron’s smug direction, spraying his endorphins out rabidly as his anger reached a height it hadn’t in quite some time.

“What, are you mad, baby brother?” Auron chided, pulling another chair up like the one in Lexy’s room and setting it a safe distance away, sitting himself down and draping his arms behind the back of it.

Harry continued to attemptedly fight his way out of his chains, growing more useless as Auron grew happier in response, cursing their late Mother for ever bearing twins. Without Auron, none of this would have ever happened, but he knew Auron felt the same way about him. “And you don't think I have a few reasons to be...” he scoffed dryly, once again halting his wiggling to use his mind instead; if brawn wouldn't get him out of this mess, maybe brains would. But Louixander was usually the brains of the situation...what would _he_ do?

“Oh, you have every reason to be,” Auron agreed, crossing one knee over the other and interlocking his fingers under the top one. “I never said that. You should be mad, and I want you to be. For _many_ reasons. But most of all—” he said impishly, rising to his feet and sauntering up to his brother to stir the pot. “—because your ears aren't the only ones that Alexander moans into.”

“You're dead, do you hear me?” Harry shouted, forgetting all about using his brain and violently throwing his weight forward again and again while Auron merely chuckled. “I will rip your spine straight out of your back and shove it up your ass!”

“That's a new one,” Auron snorted, the obscene visual on that threat really making him think about it. “I suppose it would be nice of you to put it back...but your threats mean nothing, baby brother. You're no stronger than a human child. As for the dead part, I'm actually very much alive. Courtesy of Alexander’s immortal blood. Which I'm happy to announce will now stay inside of me forever. Quite the upgrade from this old rag,” he said, pushing the sleeve of his tight blazer up to showcase a once-white rag with brown stains tied around his wrist.

“Where did you get that?” Harry demanded, automatically assuming it was his from the first night Louis had broken into his mansion, but he quickly remembered that Alexander’s blood and Louis’ blood were two very different things.

“Well it's not yours, if that's what you mean. I acquired this myself centuries ago in 1599—with the blood from the dagger I plunged into his skull—”

“Silence, coward! Just fucking wait, Auron. I will eat your heart out!” Harry cried ragefully, having not felt so hopeless since that fateful year before the turn of the 16Endlesses.

“My heart? Oh, _Hadrian_. How ever could you forget?” Auron cooed, grabbing his brother by the hair and yanking his head back. “I don't _have one_ ,” he stressed, biting into his twin’s throat because tasting his blood was something he'd never before done and he was curious.

Harry vehemently refused to let any hint of pleasure get to him, but he did let out a sigh through slightly parted lips, staring at the ceiling until the bliss of essentially himself consequently closed his eyes, his lids too heavy to keep apart. “Would you get off me,” he croaked blandly, the sound of his blood being eagerly swallowed by his twin making him a special kind of uncomfortable.

Auron obeyed almost instantly, gasping in wonder as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Gladly,” he panted, smacking his tongue off the roof of his mouth while he contemplated the residual flavour. “I just had to taste you once,” he explained, ruffling his brother’s hair and stepping away as he purposefully kicked the chair across the room to clear the area. “Louis was right...we are very similar.”

“ _You_ —”

Auron interrupted him with a deafening whistle—the kind you had to use your hand for—sounding some kind of signal that Harry didn't understand but wasn't down for either way.

“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to hide his fear in the uncertainty of whomever was on their way, but it didn't convey well at all because Auron knew his tell. They both had the same one; whether they were lying, nervous, or scared, their faces made the same exact movement—a small twitch of cheek muscles under the left side of their bottom lip.

“Hmm...breaking you,” Auron replied with a devious wink, waggling his eyebrows in confirmation when Harry’s face showed a sudden understanding.

Harry had just gathered that Martin and Tanner’s scents were nearing their location, but before he could ask further questions, the heavy door of his dungeon swung open with a decrepit creak, and their ankle and handcuffed forms were swiftly dragged in. “Martin—Tanner!” he gasped, squirming around until Auron decided not to play nice anymore (if he even was before) and kicked him square in the chest, the plate of bone within it breaking with a snap under his foot.

“Harry!” Martin cried in outrage of his brother’s assault, futilely trying to run to him before he received a knee to the stomach from one of the two Elders that had lugged him down the hall.

“Quiet!” Auron snapped, drunk with the power he wielded over his ants of victims, cackling like a stereotypical fiction villain at their petrified faces. He held all the cards and he was infinitely joyous because of it. When his subjects settled down with no other logical choice, he met the eyes of the infamous butler that held a large chunk of Hadrian’s heart and blew him a kiss. “Start with his child,” he said carelessly, dragging the chair back over to Harry and sitting down, eager to enjoy the show.

“Start what?” Harry snarled, watching in horror as Martin was forcibly separated from Tanner and walked up to the right wall from where he was, his neck twisting to catch sight of him as they chained him up with his arms stretched over his head.

“Martin!” Tanner squeaked, frantically protesting his position when the two Elders surrounding Martin pulled knives and hammers out of their black leather medical bag.

“It’s okay, baby,” Martin soothed, giving his lover a small smile in spite of everything he could frown over, and then meeting Harry’s wild and enraged eyes. He tried to convey to him not to fight against this or make things worse for himself, but he also didn’t want to say that out loud. Anything could backfire on them right now.

“Got him?” Auron asked neutrally, turning his chair so it was facing the scene and interlocking his hands behind his head.

“Auron, if you want to hurt someone, hurt me!” Harry begged, his eyes widening in fear as Auron’s two Elders raised identical hammers in swinging position on either side of his cherished butler.

“Hadrian, you don’t obviously understand the point of this. This _will_ hurt you,” Auron scoffed, waiting for a few tense seconds before nodding at his vampires, thereby bringing the hammers straight down on the Frenchman’s kneecaps.

“Fuck!” Harry growled, his raging eyes seeing red when Martin groaned in pain and Tanner wailed in heartbreak. “Stop it! Stop!” he shouted, hissing in Auron’s direction until he looked over at him boredly.

“There’s this moment—” Auron began, snapping his fingers to incite the next infliction, which happened to be both of Martin’s hipbones. The frizzy-haired baby shrieked out for his howling lover, and Hadrian’s hisses got worse, but Auron wasn’t done talking. “—right when Lexy is about to come—” he continued, visualizing the moment of which he was referring and chuckling to himself amid the screams of his inferior company. “—when his breath hitches...and it’s almost like a hiccup, but it’s really high-pitched...I really love that sound,” he sighed, snapping for his Elders and pointing to his own lower ribs.

Martin squeezed his eyes shut when the blunt objects swung toward his midsection, screeching tightly in his throat when they made brutal contact and shattered his ribs. He was no stranger to broken ribs, but mixed in with all his other desecrated bones, this time was substantially worse.

“Martin! Gods, stop! Don't fucking touch him,” Harry commanded over the sound of Tanner’s wracking sobs, shutting up when Martin pelted him with a glare that told him to. He was trying to say he could take it, but Harry hardly believed he should have to.

“Then when he _does_ come,” Auron added as though chaos wasn't ensuing all around him, “and that sigh melodically tumbles from his lips...the one that goes on for so long because he'd held his breath the whole time…” he moaned, biting his lip as he slouched down into his chair.

Harry turned his attention to his heartless brother and snarled like a dog at his knowledgeable self. He was outstandingly furious that Auron had that kind of sensitive information regarding Louixander; those were details only _he_ should be privileged to know, and the fact that his brother had gotten to experience them now several times was something Harry would never forgive himself for. “Why are you doing this?” he demanded, his anger quickly dissolving into desperation. “Just fucking kill me!”

“Hang the other one up,” Auron ordered, pointing an index finger toward the corner of the door wall and the butler’s, the remaining pair of Elders dragging the sniveling creature to the designated area and setting to work on repeating the restrictive motions.

“Would you stop! Leave them alone!” Harry cried redundantly, going back to that fruitless struggle to break the chains so he could murder his brother, his heavily fractured chest bone quaking with painful tremors. “It's me you want; so take _me_ , I'm right here!”

“You’re right, Hadrian,” Auron quipped, spinning himself to the right to sit in the chair normally and address his brother. “You are right there. And I could torture you all night long and probably never get bored. But see the thing about you is you’d take it like a champion. You have a strong mind...but I think I can break it. And that's what I'm doing,” he purred, watching the younger version of his own face mourn in hopelessness.

“Don’t—worry about me, Harry. I’m okay,” Martin panted, blood painting down his flesh from the open wounds the sheer force of those hammers had created.

“What a brave little Frenchman,” Auron crooned, standing abruptly and stalking over to his lover as he reached his hand out for a dagger, somehow wordlessly translating that was what he wanted. “I wouldn’t speak so soon if I were you,” he said, plunging the blade right into the heart of the baby vampire, both the butler and his brother roaring in protective anger as the frizzy-haired vampire whined in torment. “Are you _still okay_?” he shouted to the raging butler, dragging the blade downward and laughing as black blood sprayed him like a shower.

“ _Please_ stop!” Harry choked, tears flowing freely down his cheeks while his two dear friends were stabbed and hacked to everywhere but death just to prove a fucking point.

Auron felt the festering beginnings of his plan come into play, but he couldn't reveal his motive and ambition for all of this quite yet. Hadrian had to be drained of everything before he could take that step. For now, it was good to let Hadrian get his emotions out while he still had some, and Auron was getting quite the kick out of watching it happen.

Harry now completely understood why Auron was using this method instead of ravaging him directly—Harry was more likely to cooperate at the expense of someone else rather than just himself. And plus, Auron was a Roman too; he knew how damaging it would be to Harry’s pride and honour to be unable to do anything for them. Regardless of his clarity, he let the frenzied pleads for mercy scream from his lips, willing to sacrifice every morsel of pride he had to save his family. “Let them go! Please, I'll do anything— _anything_. Stop this now! _STOP IT_!”

“Take them back,” Auron said with a swish of his wrist, his four children returning all the objects they'd villainously utilized into their bag, unlinking the chains they'd padlocked onto their ankle and handcuffs and letting them drop to the floor like sacks of potatoes. Vampire healing would right them in a few hours or so, but minds were harder to heal, and that was Auron’s true objective.

“Guys,” Harry sniffed, his vision blurred from the film of saltwater over his eyes, making the awful scene seem under the surface of...maybe that stupid ocean from his dream. “I'm so sorry,” he whispered brokenly, catching Martin’s valorous half-smile as he was dragged away by two hands gripping either elbow. Tanner was sobbing uncontrollably, but through it all, Martin held strong to his age-old reputation of rebellion to the tyrannical. He was, without shadow of a doubt, the _Frenchest_ individual Harry had ever met.

Once they were both fully removed from the room, Auron sunk down in his chair and wiped his brow, as though he had somehow overworked himself—done anything more than effortlessly orchestrate sick and twisted games for fun.

“I hate you,” Harry growled, incessant and scalding tears still blanketing the eyes he couldn't rub dry.

“I like that—that face. That's my favourite one on you,” Auron said with a circling of his pinky finger toward said expression. It was filled with not only rage and hatred, but also torment and sorrow; and given how powerless Hadrian was to resolve it, it was delicious to gander at.

“I will get out of here, Auron. Alexander too. And you'd best be fucking ready when we do,” he warned with a sinister tone, quivering with aggression that had nowhere to land.

“Slow down, Hayway,” Auron laughed, using his childhood nickname to push at least five more buttons. “You're not as capable as you think you are. You'll stay exactly where you are, I'm not nearly done with you yet.”

“It would be wise for you to kill me now, Auron. If I don't die, you will. Remember that,” Harry bit, his fangs extended with nowhere to sink them. This uselessness was truly haunting.

“You'll die, baby brother. Make no mistake about that. But I have things to take from you first. Alexander being one of them. _Then_ I will kill you. For all the _shit you put me through_ ,” he snarled darkly, standing and crossing his arms to block his own mania from breaking out and settling things before he wanted himself to.

“ _I_ put _you_ through? None of that was my fault, Auron!” Harry reasoned incredulously, the scales of what they'd done to each other laughably uneven, with Auron’s bowl weighed down so heavily the contraption was basically tipping over.

“Silence!” Auron barked, tucking his fangs back into his gums as they morphed to human canines, the eldest twin forcing himself to take his leave. “I'm a busy immortal these days, my mirror. I have to cross off the military bases before they start dropping Hiroshima bombs. But every chance I get, I'll come back. With your little friends too. Don't worry, you won't have to miss me long. Neither will Lexy,” he said, opening the heavy door and coercing his leg to step into the hall before disaster would strike. “ _Ahh_ , when in Rome,” he sighed to himself, nearly giggling in glee of everything he'd just done to both Lexy and Hadrian.

“If you kill him again, I will do things to you that you can't even imagine. Things your darkest demons couldn't even conjure,” Harry spat, hissing at Auron’s reactive face of calm. He wouldn't be so smug when his spine was in his ass.

“Nothing you could imagine could ever be darker than me, Hayway. Surely you know that by now….Besides, _you're_ going to die this time, not Lexy,” he informed, getting both feet out the door and grabbing the clunky latch to pull it closed, but not before uttering one last parting curse of words: “I'm keeping him.”

Harry opened his mouth to fire back but then the door slammed, and he didn't fancy getting the last word in when he wouldn't be able to see Auron’s face. He snarled to himself instead, hitting his head against the wall in frustration several times until he stopped from the fear that he'd knock himself out. He groaned loudly to release every negative emotion he was plagued with, tutting as he glared at the stone ceiling and begged Jupiter for help. _It's about time you fucking did something for once._

No ethereal comforts fell from the heavens and he chuckled tonelessly in the highest form of defeat. He was on his own. One comment Auron had made suddenly came back to him and he let out one shrill bark of laughter, shaking his head and snorting at Auron’s stupidly typical but overall poetic choice of location for his torture chamber. “I fucking _knew_ this was Rome.”

 

~~~

 

“So...so there’re not only tunnels covered in ancient and dark magic that are literally under our arses...but there are also feral vampires who live trapped inside these tunnels with big black eyes and overly bendy limbs...along with an original vampire that is a brother to Azazel, because apparently originals exist, who considers himself to be Stacey and Jet’s Father...that you named Max because he forgot his name...who took you into the obsidian-abundant mantle of the planet under the ocean to pop out on the English coast? Am I getting all of that?” Liam asked, his eyes wide with incredulity that he had to suppress because he knew they were telling the truth.

“Does sound weird when you put it like that,” Stacey snorted, her and Jet quietly giggling amongst themselves at the audacity of it all.

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up,” Harlock said to second them, seriously doubting the words coming out of his mouth, but they absolutely had happened in that order. What a stupid twenty four hours.

“Holy shit,” Erakus laughed in shock, looking around at his family and wishing he could have their mental imagery on what that was like. Not that it didn’t sound terrible, and he probably would have hated it at the time, but those were pretty groovy memories to have now. “I’m glad you guys are okay,” he said, leaning into his Mother and finally realizing why she was being so excessively affectionate.

“We couldn’t have made it without Harlock, Elijah, Kyösti, and Øvind,” William said with a thankful smile to each, able to recall that those four had done the most noteworthy fighting against the Lost in comparison to the guard duty side of their group. William pitched in quite a few times, as did Jet and his other son, but none had much of a chance when the other four were chopping them down like weeds.

“Please, had I been any further Lost, I wouldn’t have been much of a help at all,” Øvind argued, a dark and haunted look taking over his face—he'd come too close. His eyes would never again be blue, but at least that ended up being the worst of it.

“But you _didn't_. You're still here,” Kyösti asserted, a gentle hand coming down to squeeze Øvind’s shoulder.

“Miraculously,” Øvind agreed, patting his friend’s hand and giving it a squeeze of his own before Kyösti removed it.

“Okay,” Liam sighed, his brow creased in deep thought as he tried to set aside the insane things he’d just heard to focus on the present. “So you’re all here, and aside from Jenner, in pretty good condition,” he began, giving a sympathetic look to Harlock, who in return gave an accepting shrug because he probably knew his warlock would be fine later. “We haven’t heard anything from our side regarding Harry, Louis, or Martin and Tanner unfortunately,” he said solemnly, regretting making that statement because he rather wished he had.

“I kind of figured. What’s been happening up here? We didn’t see many humans on our way here, and that’s...odd,” Harlock said, anxious to be filled in on all the current events after being so separate and _underneath_ it all.

“Well, it’s weird, right? We barely know. The Guardians haven’t banded together like we’ve been trying to accomplish, that’s for sure—they have been busy taking out all the prowling predators they can find, humans have been rounded up in gigantic groups with an overload of security surrounding them, and the predators seem to be waiting for something...some sort of cue we’re all dreading. Bombs have been dropped on multiple countries by their rebellious militaries, but that’s getting more scarce as time goes on. Did you hear nothing from your time in the tunnels?” he asked, having heard explosions himself from afar in what sounded like London. Apparently England’s humans weren’t fucking around anymore.

“Bombs? No, we didn’t hear any bombs,” Harlock said, his eye wide in surprise that the militaries were stooping to such drastic actions—though, if he were a human in that kind of position with those kinds of resources, he might do the same. Vampires were quite the unexpected enemy to the public. Desperate times call for desperate measures or whatever.

“I heard America was the worst,” Johnny said, trying to relax on Liam’s lap but seemingly unable to find a comfortable spot due to his nerves.

“That’s horrible,” Stacey mourned, picturing her hometown of Fortwright crumpled and desecrated by firepower, but that was admittedly a small spot on the map. It was _probably_ fine.

“Yeah, we haven’t had much contact with America. They have their hands full with all that,” Liam mourned, wishing the militaries wouldn’t resort to such ‘solutions’ because they were only making things worse for themselves.

“Do we know what Auron has been doing, though? His methods?” Harlock inquired, without a place to even start guessing. The last he’d heard was that predators were running around turning humans, and then it settled down and they were being gathered instead— _predators_. Harlock detested the term. It was pure luck they hadn’t run into any on their way across southern England, but it was also a damn shame. Harlock would have enjoyed ripping a few apart.

“Their motives are strange. They’re not trying to murder the humans of the world because as we all know, they’re doing this for attention. For recognition and glory. That first wave was just to blast us all out in the open. Last I heard from Julius, they were emptying out prisons and arenas, any kind of structure that’s difficult to get out of without our strength, and luring the humans into them with guards at every entrance. Same with both the main cities of the world and the rural or at least smaller city areas. Unfortunately for them and the humans they’d wrangled, the big cities have been getting hit relentlessly with a firepower that we didn’t anticipate,” he said darkly, wishing he’d had the idea to focus on the cities, but they’d been too insane to tackle. But now _all_ hope had been lost.

“Didn’t anticipate?” Jenner suddenly said from the doorway that connected the hall and living room, shocking everyone except for Harlock who had smelled him coming the moment he’d left the bed. “I could have anticipated that. Especially America. You don’t know those humans like I do—any of us that lived there could have predicted they would lash out with everything they had,” he croaked, shuffling over to Harlock and sitting down hard on his lap.

“Can’t sleep, babe?” Harlock whispered into his ear, letting out a quiet burst of laughter when his lover immediately fell fast asleep.

“I think he just needed you _to_ sleep,” Johnny cooed in understanding of the typical notion, relating to it on a spiritual level.

Harlock lovingly gazed down at his curled-up Jenner and couldn’t help but grin, adjusting him subtly so that his position was as comfortable as it could be and tucking his head to rest on his shoulder, petting his big orange curls affectionately as he turned his attention back to their company. “Jenner was right. America’s reaction was entirely routine. I wouldn’t expect to hear much from their Guardians until they restore at least some amount of order, though the chances of that happening are slim across the border. England is a relatively small place, and it’s easy to coordinate between the regions. But America is huge,” he huffed, his hands idly rubbing at Jenner’s toasty body while he pressed kisses to his hair.

“Can anyone theorize what Auron’s next step is? If we could be always one step ahead of him, he’d be hard-pressed to have his plots go smoothly,” Elijah chimed, dragging himself away from Niko’s embrace and appearing dependably mature and professional.

“I’m afraid the only one who could get into his head like that is Harry,” Liam grudgingly shot down, coming to terms with that giant step back from their microscopic progression.

“I’m so worried about him,” Zayn sobbed, losing himself to his emotions he’d worked so hard to keep inside while Niall threw his arms around him in support.

“Louis….All of them,” Niall added, mixing his own tears into the emotional wreckage as they attempted to lower the volume of their whines.

“I know, sweetie,” Stacey cooed, jogging over to Niall and kneeling at his lap to force him to look at her. “I miss them too. But we’re gonna find them, okay? If it’s the last thing we do,” she promised, ruffling the blonde’s hair and offering him a comfort that not many others could because Niall was the only one here who had known Louis as a human before he’d even met vampires—he’d had years of Louis before all this—and obviously so had she.

“Do you have any extra rooms, dearie?” Lotta rasped to Liam once she’d gotten all the information she’d waited to hear (that they had nothing), her head on her husband’s shoulder and seeming every bit as old and frail as she physically looked.

“Johnny?” Liam asked sheepishly, hating to ask him for everything but knowing that he wouldn’t mind in the slightest. He was a natural caregiver and couldn’t help lending a hand in times of any need, be it trivial or dire.

“Of course,” Johnny agreed just like he’d been anticipated to, making the offer to anyone who wanted to get some sleep in real beds. The sisters Kaisa and Susanna, Kyösti, Lotta, and Veronica accepted, and the rest stayed put, giving their goodbye’s and scooting in closer to the coffee table.

“Where can we start?” Erakus asked their newfound addition of Harlock Lawson: the ever so dependable voice of authority to him for the last decade or so; a Father-like figure that almost rivaled the blood-related status of his own Papa. “Before you got here, we’d mentioned that finding Harry and Louis is the key to bringing this entire operation down. ‘Cuz it’ll inevitably lead to either Auron or Azazel, and we need those two fucks found.”

“I think we might have met just the vampire who can help with Azazel. And he might be able to take us right to him, but he said he wanted to meet Alexander first,” Harlock said, Stacey and Jet getting some odd and bittersweet looks on their faces—ones that said ‘There was so much I wanted to ask him.’

“Just for the record, you do mean Max, right?” Niall asked, preferring to be fully in the know than guessing on the sidelines as usual.  

“Yes,” Harlock confirmed, thinking back to that nerve-racking face of his and pondering how truthful his claim to help them would turn out to be.

“Don’t look so upset, he wasn’t that bad,” Stacey defended, shrugging at the one-eyed glare she received.

“Either way, does that involve going into tunnels because…” Marley trailed, an involuntary but highly reasonable shudder coursing through his rickety bones.

“You don't get to shiver about the concept of tunnels,” Niko protested, not having the faintest clue who he was talking to but his brother’s lustful scent was all over him and it didn't take a genius to assume who he might be. “We were the ones to suffer through that.”

“All the more reason?” Marley replied defensively, meeting the iconic white-blue eyes of a Sparrow and glaring at the familiar orbs for all he was worth. “After that obscenely horrifying account you gave of your experiences, you think I’d wanna go there on holiday?” he challenged, checking everyone else’s face to make sure he wasn't being the only hesitant one.

“If we found Max quickly, we'd be fine. The Lost won't hurt him, they know they can't. He kinda controls them a little bit...at least, they listened to his hisses,” Harlock informed, remembering how impressed he'd been that Max could cut their groupings in half like the warlock Moses with his parted sea business to let Harlock’s group through, and those tunnel dwellers hadn't even _tried_ to attack.

“Niall?” Marley begged, his hope riding on the blonde’s common fears of things to back his own.

“I'll do anything to save Louis,” Niall vowed with a fiery passion, receiving a proud pat on the thigh from Zayn for his courage. “ _Anything_.”

“Fuck, well so will I!” Marley groaned, his head in his hands as he accepted their underground fate. “Fine, tunnels it is.”

“Looks like that might have to wait,” Øvind muttered beside the window, his hand holding the curtain aside as he narrowed his eyes on something outside of the glass.  

“What do you—” Liam began, stopping short as he and Harlock both picked up on it at the same time.

“Because unless you’re having unmentioned guests over for a spot of tea and crumpets,” Øvind mused in obvious doubt, a small snort pushing from his nostrils at his humour, “there's an immense herd of enemies in those fields on their way right now to kill you.”

It wasn't something Harlock was particularly surprised to hear, but that didn't change his opinion of how shitty the timing was. “Of fucking course there is!” he snapped in annoyance, the volume of his voice startling Jenner awake.

“Bollocks,” Liam muttered, striding over to the window and peeking through it as Øvind stepped aside to give him room, faintly making out the distant shape of a small army heading straight for his house. “If only I weren't fresh out of crumpets.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to upload this one directly after 4. I know you can see why. The suspense was too great, even for me. It was tough to even get through that first word count before reaching Harry and Louis, I missed writing them soooo much by the time I arrived. Anywho, not that it's any kind of great gift, is it? They're getting annihilated. Meh, I am Jackson, after all. Don't reckon you can expect too much. I'll probably fuck off for two days now haha sorry. *throws rose petals as I dash out of the room*


	6. What Does Azazel Want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dunno why I ever let myself get so stressed out last time for path to permanence. the answer to all those problems is so fucking simple, I should be crying in shame. The only thing I need to do to keep you away from my current chapters is not upload one here until I've finished the one I'm working on. DUH. I don't know how and why I never thought of that before. I told myself I wouldn't upload 6 until I was done with 13. And I just finished 13. So here I am. Wow. What a fucking concept, I'm such an idiot. Now I won't upload 7 until I'm done with 14. wowowowowowow. *bangs pots and pans together in frustration*

Louis could honestly say he’d never felt this brutalized in his entire existence. And taking into account some of the shit he’d been through, that bar was set quite high—but this left it in the dust. After the nefarious twin had left, his trusty Elders had slunk into the room with sunglasses on, blood bags on a wheeled cart, and those sodding warlock-constructed sunlight flashlights in their beefy fists. Louis had known pretty instantly what all that meant for him, but he couldn’t have predicted the grueling length the torture would drag on for. It had been never-ending.

They’d shone those merciless metal bastards right into his eyes until he’d fallen under the clutches of crippling sun sickness, then they’d poured a minuscule amount of blood down his throat to revive him, only to shove him right back under the powerful sun beams again. Again, and again, _and again_. It continued on like that for hours he couldn’t even _begin_ to count—until he was sobbing and begging for them to stop, praying for death to end his unwarranted suffering.

Auron had come in here and there, consistently giving him a pouty face of ‘sympathy’ that Louis wasn’t even close to believing in, and he’d downright refused to vocally respond to Louis’ pleads. All he would do was rub himself all over Louis’ body and give him unrequited kisses, marking his territory like a cat and then retreating without one spoken word. The routine interaction would last maybe twenty seconds at the longest and then it was back to the endless throes of sun torture.

Every nerve, joint, muscle, bone, and centimetre of skin that made Louis up was inescapably burning with a special kind of inferno that Louis had never before had the displeasure of experiencing, and whenever he brokenly cried to the floor, the tears were unsurprisingly that of blood. Louis feared that if the instigating Elders didn’t stop this shit soon, his eyes would melt right out of his skull. It hurt to keep them open, and it almost hurt worse to close them, every blink creating more red tears. This was going to kill him—he wasn’t coming back from this.

He’d just been resuscitated again by the unwelcome dose of blood in his throat, his momentary blip of peace too small to relish in, but before they could assault him again, Auron casually stepped into the room, and Louis tried his hardest yet to get through to him. He was done. “Auron, _please_ , for the love of Zeus! I am _begging you_. Make them stop. Please, Auron, please. I can’t take this anymore—I can’t fucking do this,” he wailed, hitting his lowest rock bottom but finding himself unable to wallow in that disappointment. Anything to free him from this hell.  

“Lexy, you poor thing,” Auron sighed, crossing his arms defiantly and raising an eyebrow at the sniveling Alexander. “What’s in it for me?” he asked, cocking his head to the side while Lexy frantically searched for an answer he would accept.

Louis didn’t want to give in completely, he was far too stubborn for that level of surrender, but he also couldn’t stand missing his opportunity to protect himself from what seemed like imminent, _very_ near-future death. He couldn’t make himself beg for Auron’s forgiveness or mercy, but he could maybe peak his interest—he just didn’t know how. He knew the clock on a response was ticking, and when Auron began to turn away with a smirk, he accidentally blurted the first thing that came to mind: “The dream in the forest! Why did we share it?” 

Auron looked surprised to hear _that_ out of all things, and his short chuckle chilled Louis right to his seared bones. Had he said the wrong thing? Was it sunshine time again?  

“Is that the best you can do?” Auron asked skeptically, sighing in defeat when Louis’ face broke with sheer terror. “Alright, fine. You know I can't say no to that pretty face. Take a hike, boys,” he said to his nasty goons, keeping his eyes on Louis as they exited the room and left them alone.  

Louis fought to keep his tangible relief to himself, fearing that if Auron was made aware of Louis considering this a victory, he'd change his mind and bring them back. He followed him with wary and severely bloodshot eyes as he picked up the metal folding chair and walked it over to the space just shy of two feet away from him.

“Don't look so comfortable, I've been meaning to tell you this anyway,” Auron said giddily, throwing Louis for a loop because he hadn't expected Auron to have a concrete answer of any kind. 

“You actually know why?” he croaked, his throat sore and ravaged from what had felt like days of screaming. And who knows? It very well could have been.  

“Of course I do. I did it on purpose,” Auron said, smiling at Louis’ dumbstruck expression and keeping him in suspense until he began to question further, swiftly interrupting him. “I had forgotten at the time, while in the dream; I hadn't remembered what I'd done. But that was a spell. A spell my closest warlock had spent an arduous amount of time perfecting because I wanted to try it out. When I awoke, everything came back to me, but I couldn't be _sure_ it had truly worked. Not until I heard your side of things...and when you confirmed it, I was amazed,” he said, shaking his head in approval because he still couldn't believe it had worked.  

“How could...how could a spell link two consciousnesses together when I wasn't even around? Wouldn't two parties need to be involved for something like that?” Louis reasoned in uncommon confusion. It wasn't that he had an extensive understanding of how magic worked, but this seemed like a logical argument to make.  

“See that's the best part,” Auron said proudly, pleased to bestow the details of his accomplishment. “Regardless of how difficult it was for my warlock to enact it, all that was needed was my blood and an object of sentimental significance that pertained solely to you. Obviously I had both.”  

“What object could you have of mine?” Louis wondered, wracking his brain for anything that important that Auron could have gotten his mitts on. He didn't hold many material items dear.  

Auron gave his most nerve-racking smile yet and approached the guarded Lexy, holding him by the chin as he pulled something shiny from his coat pocket and held it up for him to see. “This,” he said, dangling a dagger before Louis’ face and watching the gears click in his head.  

 _Zeus._ Louis wouldn't have ever seen this coming. The unfolded truth shook him to the core, and though he was actually somewhat impressed, the sight of the dagger made his stomach churn with an uneasiness he hadn't felt since the last time he'd seen it. Just before it had been plunged into his brain. “I can't believe you kept that…” 

“ _Really_?” Auron blurted incredulously, in full disbelief that Lexy would have that kind of doubt. Didn't he know him by now? 

“Okay, no. I believe it, it's just...that thing is so old,” Louis corrected, freezing when Auron tapped the sharp tip against his temple, holding it there and playfully twisting the handle in his fingertips.  

“It was right here,” Auron reminded needlessly, a twinge of repressed sadness threatening to affect his good mood. He'd cried for hours after that.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn't hold that thing to my fucking skull,” Louis said bravely, catching the fleeting moment of Auron’s hesitation and riding its current.  

Auron’s green eyes flicked from the blade to Louis’, their pupils wildly dilated and menacing until he laughed through his nose and took the dagger away. He walked over to the wheeled cart with the blood bags and plucked one from the collection, uncapping it and holding it to Lexy’s lips to drink it down.  

Louis didn’t question the offering, greedily sucking the revitalizing essence down while Auron pet his hair and spoke in an eerily comforting tone. “I won't kill you, Alexander. I have far better plans for you now—and better uses for this,” he added as he confidently let go of the bag because Alexander had sunk his teeth into it, gripping the handle of his treasured weapon and dragging the sharp edge down the middle of Lexy’s white t-shirt to tear it in two, slicing every other portion of the garment until it fell completely from the King’s shoulders.  

Louis choked on the mostly emptied liquid and sharply spat the bag from his mouth, needing to make three separate attempts because his fangs had gotten stuck. “Thanks,” he sassed in annoyance of his unsolicited undressing after the bag was finally launched away from his face, glaring at Auron’s lustful stare locked onto his naked chest.  

“You look better like this anyway,” Auron murmured, holding the dagger between his teeth as he smoothed his palms up and down Lexy’s beautifully curved body, his thumbs dancing over his nipples as he watched his torso flinch from the sensitivity. “I’ll make you feel great,” he said with clenched teeth, dropping the dagger into his palm and setting the blade just outside the circle of Lexy’s areola. 

“Auron, don’t,” Louis warned, boring his eyes into Auron’s when they snapped up to look at him.  

“I’ll just bring the sunshine back in here then,” he baited, only beginning to pivot away when Alexander took it all back.  

“No—please, not that,” Louis blurted, groaning when Auron turned back to him with that smug face he hated so much.  

“Then you’ll take whatever I give to you,” Auron said sternly, placing the blade back where he’d decided to put it and sluggishly dragging it down Lexy’s left pectoral, grinning as he observed the trickle of dark red blood follow it down, meanwhile listening to Lexy’s reactive hiss (an inhaled one—not the vampiric kind). It was like music to his ears. 

Louis dropped his head down to watch the forced scene play out before him, holding his breath when Auron’s tongue rolled out to paint up the incision and lather it with his endorphins. He shivered in want but strove to retain it, meeting Auron’s eyes with a challenging stare and then instantly regretting it...or did he?  

Auron chuckled and turned his head sideways toward the rest of Lexy’s body, letting his fangs burrow into the wound he’d made while his tongue circled over his nipple. He held Lexy’s hips still when he wiggled to get away, moaning against his skin when he noticed the King’s breaths fall short and excited. He took his teeth out and dropped down to his knees, slicing the same kind of mark on the inside of Louis’ hip bone and bending his neck so he could bite there too.  

This spot was infinitely worse. Louis’ hips bucked forward of their own volition as he shrieked with a closed mouth, and he grasped the chains that spread out from his wrists to ground himself. His hardened cock being so close to Auron’s stupid mouth was driving him wild, and he had the passing thought that it was going to be hard to let Harry kill Auron someday, because he _really_ wanted to.  

Auron’s delicate fingers traveled to the button of his jeans to give him everything he could want, and Louis wholefully encouraged it, sighing in bliss and swaying his hips to get out of the clothing until he realized what that would lead to. “Shit! Stop it!” he forced out of his throat, whining when Auron abruptly took his teeth out of his hip and stood to eye-level.  

“Do you really want me to stop?” he asked dubiously, his hand suspended millimetres over Lexy’s crotch but denying him the pressure that could unravel him until he got a response.  

Of course Louis wanted to come, but he didn’t want it at the manipulating hands of Auron—Hadrian’s hand would definitely come in handy in this situation, but he wasn’t here right now and Louis wasn’t so lost in his lust that he would settle for betraying his lover for a simple orgasm. “Yes,” he lied honestly (figure that out), fearing the instant loss of warmth in Auron’s eyes like someone had flipped a switch. Well, not ‘someone’... _he_ had flipped the switch.  

“Fine,” Auron quipped nonchalantly, gripping the dagger he’d priorly pocketed and plunging it into Lexy’s thigh so deep it sliced through his femur.

“Fuck,” Louis growled, wincing when Auron ripped it back out and licked the blood from the metallic snake.  

“All I want to do is treat you right and give you what you crave, but if you’re going to be a little bitch, then fine,” he said, turning on his heel and sauntering to the door as he called out for his goons to come back.  

“Wait—wait no, no, no—” Louis whimpered, shaking in trepidation when the Elders ambled back into the room around Auron.  

“It’s too late for that, Lexy. That isn’t how this is going to work. You know what you need to do to get out of here, right?” he asked with his eyebrows raised, piercing the blubbering King with an expectant stare. 

Louis said nothing at all because his eyes were glued to his torturers as they slid their sunglasses up their noses, but he found a moment to glance at the smirking Roman behind them. “What…” 

Auron cackled and skipped back over to him, grabbing his face and smashing their lips together for the hell of it, pulling back and whispering the answer into his ear. “Just say yes to me…” he said, touching their foreheads together and thumbing at Lexy’s preemptive tears. “Give yourself to me and your suffering will end.” 

“I refuse,” Louis snarled valiantly, glaring right into Auron’s disappointed eyes and throwing his every shred of hatred through his features.

“Too bad,” Auron sneered, taking his leave and telling his goons to make sure he survived before having the last word as per usual on his way out the door. “Then _I refuse_ to help you.”

 

~~~

 

Every plan they had kept getting fucked. That was Jenner’s main concern. Three days they'd been on the run. _Three_. Who knows what could have happened to Harry, Louis, Martin, and Tanner by now?

He, and his entire crew of colossal proportions (being himself, Harlock, Zayn, Niall, all nine Sparrows, Marley, Øvind, Stacey, Jet, Liam, Johnny, Erik, Ezra, and all the other Payne vampires and humans that added up to twelve that he hadn't yet taken the time to distinguish, Annabelle, and the twins Lauren and Lawrence), were currently in a tourist shack outside the boundaries for Snowdonia National Park in Wales. All of them—in one tiny shack. Jenner’s standards for tight spaces had drastically skyrocketed after suffering through the caves and tunnels, so at least he wasn’t in danger of a panic attack, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a little stuffy in here.

Regardless, he kept silent and squished while the Elders glared out the windows, the group just trying to catch a break in-between sprints toward new locations. The goal at this point was to get Liam’s humans (besides Johnny) and vampires to Julius, Bernard, and Petra’s stronghold in Chester so they could focus on getting back to the tunnels in the southwest corner of England, aware that asking humans to traverse them was unethical. Jenner’s face had twitched in anger when that had been said. As a warlock, it had been even worse for him, but whatever. Johnny would hate it too at least.

Ezra—and a vampire Jenner had learned was named Astair when Liam had snapped at him for being difficult—had vehemently asserted that they were coming too and there wasn’t anything Liam could do about it, but Liam hadn’t appreciated that very much. He ordered them to look after the humans because Julius’s group might have to leave and they’d be better off protecting the humans with their numbers of nine and six respectively. Ezra and Astair’s faces had fallen upon rejection, but they couldn’t deny Liam of his wishes, so they reluctantly agreed to stay behind. They took saving the world seriously, but they also regarded their humans as important figures to their hearts, so in the end they didn’t pursue the topic any further.

The group had phoned Julius maybe yesterday from a home that still had a working telephone, and Julius accepted without a second thought—only problem was that he was too busy to leave himself. This was why they had to travel further north to drop Liam’s crew off. Left without the privilege of getting picked up even _halfway there_ was eating at their precious time, but it was something they had to do.

“Are you sure this original is going to wait for you?” Erakus asked plainly to Harlock and Jenner, who looked as deep in thought as one could be while still conscious.

“Sure? Believe me, when it comes to Max, nothing can ever be sure...but he seemed really interested in Louixander. It was kind of the only reason he agreed to help us in the first place. I think that interest will remain just as insistent as before, we just…”

Stacey’s head turned at the mention of her son’s conjoined names, but she said nothing because she had nothing to say, her and Jet merely craning their heads to catch their conversation.

“Don’t know how far we’ll have to go to find him. I doubt he’s going to be anywhere close to the surface, which means we’ll need more fucking tanks before Johnny and I go down,” Jenner finished for him, that last part being more of his own personal problem than the problems of the group itself.

“No worries, Marley and I will get some for you guys,” Erakus said with a smile, becoming unnerved when Harlock still hadn’t wiped the look of distress from his face. “Harlock?” he asked carefully, waiting a full five seconds before the Elder finally looked at him. “Is everything...well, no—” he corrected, knowing that everything was not okay by any means, “—what are you thinking about?” he settled for, catching the tiny smile from Harlock at his miswording.

“Tanner...all four of them, of course, but I can’t help thinking of Tanner the most. He is the youngest and certainly weakest immortal of that quartet, and I can only imagine his fear. It’s also concerning that all four have the genes of Azazel in them...we can’t ever tell the difference, but Azazel can—all the originals can; we learned that from Max. Will Azazel somehow take advantage of this? What’s his role in everything? I have so many fucking questions and we need to get back to Max as soon as possible. None of this is promising, and our time is _limited_ —we need to utilize the amount of we have with the utmost—”

“Incoming!” Liam snapped, pulling Harlock out of his turmoil to taste the air and suss out the things he’d been putting on the backburner of his mind.

“Fight or flight?” Erakus asked, him and Marley grasping each other’s hand and rubbing their thumbs on the other’s skin to give them grounding and focus.

Liam gauged the distance of their enemies and hissed in the back of his throat, exasperated and tired of getting routinely tracked down and attacked when they had shit to do. Regardless of irritation, he rolled his shoulders back and crackled his knuckles, snapping his fingers at the immortals of their group as he scooted his way to the only exit the shack had. “Fight.”

 

~~~

 

Martin woke up first on the stone floor, startled by a nightmare of last torture session's outcome. He rolled over and caught sight of Tanner beside him, still bloodied and mangled by what had happened to him. Being young, his regenerative speed was significantly slower than Martin’s, and he'd gotten the most horrid of all the treatment they'd endured.

Martin felt lucky that Auron’s vampires didn't seem to care about separating them; they were always tossed like bags of flour onto the harsh floor, but then left behind, always able to scoot up to each other and cuddle themselves asleep.

Last time, however, hadn't given them any chance of hushed conversation before sleep. Tanner hadn't been consciously present at all. His lover’s true death had honestly been a close call, and if Harry hadn't stopped when Martin had begged him to, he would be lying in this room by himself right now. The thought haunted him like a poltergeist that refused to move on, but the memory of the event haunted him more, and he knew it always would. For the rest of his existence.

 

***

 

_Auron had done it. It had been slow, grating, and traumatic, but he’d begun to train Harry against speaking out on behalf of Martin, Tanner, and even his beloved Louis. Trained him to stay silent and unresponsive to the worst kind of taunts imaginable, and it had started to work—what a truly vile and disgraceful creature Auron was._

_From the start, it had been very obvious to Martin what Auron was after here, and though he knew Harry was aware it was a blatant form of psychological torture, he’d been too gone to notice the pattern. And Martin hadn’t been able to translate this pattern to him or the system likely would have changed and they’d have all been much worse off. Just perfect, right?_

_This pattern was plain as day: after Auron’s goons had hung him and Tanner up like fresh meat in a butcher shop, the serpent himself would come into the room positively reeking of Louis, Harry would get upset at the scent and relentless taunts of his brother, maniacally try to break free, then Martin and Tanner would get the beatings of a fucking lifetime. An immortal lifetime._

_Forever it went on like that, with a gradual increase in Harry’s cooperation as he slowly put two and two together, but he wasn’t quite stone yet. Martin was sure he was diligently holding a large portion of his emotions in to save Martin and Tanner, but as a vampire—and especially as a Roman—that was a particularly hard thing to do. And Auron always came in with the memory of Louis’ lips smeared all over his own...if it were Tanner, Martin would break too._

_Martin and Tanner had discussed Auron’s system and were more than willing to put up with certain abuses if it ultimately helped them (A.K.A., the torments didn’t end up being something worse if they explained the pattern to Harry out loud), but this session was something else. If you can conceptualize the atrocity of however long they’d spent suffering, this being worse should really tell you something. Martin’s every bone was cracked or snapped in some way, and that was generally fine with him all things considered, but whenever the Elders fixated on Tanner, his world stopped. Anyone but Tanner. And they seemed mighty focused on him at the moment._

_Cries of desperation spewed from Martin in a longing that would never see closure, the once-butler-turned-sidekick powerless to stop the disgusting Elders that crowded Tanner like a swarm of angry wasps, directed by the neutral Auron who exuded reprehensible malevolence like a spout._

_Tanner looked too scared to make much noise, apart from the choking he endured when three bags of blood were consecutively squirted into his mouth, and Martin groaned in protective fury. The Elders gave him a second to catch his breath, deaf to the demands of Martin to take him instead, and then they emptied three more, apparently on track to plague him with an overdose._

_Martin stared at Tanner’s struggling form and screeched nonsensically at the Elders, too angry and mindless to form words around his pleads. All that was going through his mind were the times he and Tanner had shared by this point in their relationship. Sure, some of it had been rocky, but sweet little moments had been able to seep up through the grouted cracks, and he’ll list them hence._

_First sight was definitely a noteworthy event. He’d been present for the human lunch at Harlock’s, standing beside Harry and Zayn as the mortals filled the dots of chairs along the two lengthy tables. He’d scanned their faces out of either boredom or curiosity, but the second his gaze had fallen onto Tanner, he’d known he would regret it forever if he left there without at least saying something. Working up the courage to and doing it was the best decision he’d ever made._

_From their meeting and first nervous conversation, Martin had already grown too attached to let him go, and when they’d had to leave, he’d decided to bring that up to Harry in the sternest way he could muster. He really would have stayed if Harry had refused. Alas, Harry concurred, and thus had the road trip of a lifetime together, including when the humans had gotten arrested and taken to prison, and they’d ended up in a morgue. Good times._

_Though tedious, their journey had been relatively stagnant with long hours of nothing but road, but that had all changed when the bus broke down. He’ll never be able to describe what it was like to leave with Harlock and then come back to see Tanner nearly dead. Upon arrival, a vampire had blindsided him with a sneak attack and he’d been forced to dispose of it first before attending to Tanner—that was his fastest kill to date. The blood spewing out of Tanner’s neck had made Martin choose his fate for him, whether he asked permission or not. Tanner wasn’t ever going to make it out of that—Martin would have turned him no matter what he fucking wanted._

_The assault on his neck had left a sizeable scar that’s still present today, but its existence wholly eclipses the horrendous maroon colour that had once sprouted from it. After turning him, their love for one another had grown and reached the heavens in four seconds at the most, rapidly aging their relationship because they’d formed a bond together that unifies two beings in quite significant ways._

_Then as a vampiric couple, their escapades had continued; always watching over their shoulder for enemies in the shadows, but happy to be together regardless. Their lovemaking was astoundingly beautiful, and even on his moodiest days, Tanner was the very epitome of grace, kindness, generosity, and empathy. To see him so terrorized and panicked should have been enough to give Martin all the strength he needed to break the chains that bound him through sheer force of will, and that was precisely why Martin felt unworthy to be considered Tanner’s protector—he couldn’t fucking break the chains._

_Wrestle as he may, and he certainly did, the loss of his everyday ability was equivalent to standing for the first time when you haven’t in fifty years. It was as though his muscles had been neglected his whole life and had irreversibly atrophied as a result. Martin hadn’t understood what was causing it, besides something to do the chains, but Tanner had referenced his experience with Jenner and theorized that sunlight was in the metal. Wouldn’t surprise him after the flashlight debacle that had pegged him in a club one moment, and a cornfield the next._

_“Not my baby!” Martin screamed amidst his thoughts, swaying left to right because unlike Harry’s, his and Tanner’s chains were hooked from the ceiling, lifting their arms over their heads. He wouldn’t be able to get all the way to Tanner, but trying felt like the best thing he could do, regardless of his limbs feeling like they were filled with shards of glass._

_“Quiet!” Auron snapped to him, his eyes wordlessly alerting him that if he kept fighting, he would regret it._

_Thing is, Martin already regrets it. He regrets every moment of his beautiful relationship, because Tanner’s situation was not worth the moments of happiness with someone like Martin. Someone who couldn’t even protect him from danger. Someone who was literally watching him get tortured from five feet away and couldn’t do jack shit to help him. Right now at this moment, he regrets ever meeting Tanner Jameson. “So kill me!” he shrieked at Auron, more serious in this instant than he could truly grasp._

_That got the passionate reactions of both Harry and Tanner, the baby vampire’s protests gurgled around the suffocating blood, Harry’s pained and forlorn. Auron had risen out of his chair and stepped over to him like an angry dog waiting for its prey to run, and now he was a few inches from his face, staring at him with squinted eyes like he was trying to gauge if he should or not._

_“Don’t! Don’t, Auron!” Harry cried, his eyes rapidly darting between Martin and Tanner to keep tabs on their precarious livelihoods._

_“Shut up, Harry!” Martin bit harshly, wincing when Auron savagely punched him straight in the nose. Add that to the broken list._

_“No, keep going, this is GREAT,” Auron encouraged, waltzing over to Tanner and collecting two of the knives at his feet._

_“Don’t touch him!” Martin growled, meeting Tanner’s nervous and heady eyes from the overdose, his body sluggish and clogged with overstock._

_“It’s okay,” Tanner whispered hoarsely, trying to lean away from the knife tips on either sides of his navel._

_“No, it’s NOT! IT IS NOT OKAY!” Martin argued maniacally, thrashing against the wall and spitting his own blood out of his mouth when he nearly choked._

_“Don’t—” Harry’s meek grovel was cut off when Auron did exactly what he’d set out to, stabbing Tanner in the lower abdomen and twisting the blades to viciously scramble his insides._

_“Oh God, Tanner, I'm so sorry!” Martin shouted as his lover squealed and writhed, both Harry and himself raging over the situation without a filter._

_“Now do you see what I can do to you, Harry?” Auron cackled over the cacophony of livid anguish. “You complain one more fucking time, and these are going in his brain!” he warned, dragging the knives up Tanner’s chest and then yanking them out to rest the tips on either side of his head._

_Harry, in his blind anger, was unable to take a few seconds to realize the gravity of his actions, and the words tumbled out before he could stop them. “I will fucking kill—”_

_“Harry!” Martin yelled incredulously, his entire world imploding to one focal point as Auron outstretched his arms to get the momentum to stab Tanner in a place he’d never come back from._

_“Martin, I love you!” Tanner rasped in his lackluster condition, coming to terms with what would soon happen to him, and only wishing that Martin wouldn’t suffer the same fate._

_Harry seemed to finally comprehend how imminent it was that Tanner would die, but he couldn’t even hold back the scream of grief. “Stop, stop! NOOO—”_

_“HARRY, SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Martin bellowed louder than anyone had this whole time, drowning the room in an abrupt silence as Harry obeyed in earnest, freezing himself and closing his eyes off from the world around him._

_“Oh my, that was SO dramatic,” Auron lilted in enjoyment, dropping the knives with a trill of windchime-like sounds and patting Tanner on his matted hair, then strutting back to his chair and releasing a sigh. “Best performance I have ever seen in all my long years. Well done, butler. You broke him,” he praised to the wild-faced Frenchman, leaning down to stare up at Hadrian’s blank and empty eyes that were married to one spot the ground._

_Martin cursed the stars for everything they’d been through, glancing between the comatose and vacant Harry and his courageous lover who looked to be hanging onto survival by a thread. He wondered what was next now, and when the Elders came up to him and held a knife to the center of his chest, he figured it out—it was a test._

_“Do it,” Auron ordered, watching his brother studiously as Gregory drove the blade into the butler’s chest and shook it around to make him screech. “You hear that?” he prompted to Harry, begging him to come back and initiate the act Auron was admittedly itching to commit. “That's your beloved creation screaming in pain. Shall I put a knife to his skull too?” he purred, expertly twisting his ever so dearest dagger around in his hand, letting it dance through the breaks in his fingers. It was a ruse, of course—he’d never tarnish the memory of Alexander embedded in this dagger by contaminating it with another’s blood—but no one here had to know that._

_Hadrian didn’t even blink. Auron scooted closer and contorted himself on the chair to be in Hadrian’s direct line of sight, but it was like he was looking through him. Success. “This is delicious,” he murmured, straightening his knees and pushing his forehead against Hadrian’s, rubbing at his face and moving his head around to snap him out of his stupor. Nothing._

_“Tanner,” Martin hissed while the twins and surrounding Elders were distracted, making clicking sounds with his tongue like he was calling a horse. Tanner gave him a half-assed smile and then slumped down unconsciously, his wrists bleeding from the pressure his weight put on the overhead binds. Martin frowned in sympathy but figured that it might be better for Tanner to be asleep than awake at the moment, so he let it go._

_Martin turned his face back to the close-countered twins and couldn’t help his awe; disregarding their differing outfits, their striking resemblance made them seem like an exact reflection. Both covered in blood and stood at the same height, their curls spiraled in the same places, their eyes a vigorous green, lips red as cherries—it made Martin cringe to see them side by side like that. How mysterious of the mistress of life to construct two so very different individuals with identical features._

_Auron was quite simply the evil version of the two; Hadrian was a beacon (most of the time) of justice, light, and love, and though he certainly had his moments of villainy, Auron was the pure embodiment of malice. Gazing speechlessly at the yin and yang Aelius twins wracked Martin with a horrendous taste in his mouth, and he had to look away before he got lost in their profiles._

_“I know you can hear me, baby brother,” Auron cooed, placing a gentle kiss on Hadrian’s nose and playing with his hair. “I want you to listen to this...if you make a squawk, I will do this again. Without warning—one of them will die...and the other will hate you forever. They’re mine, you’ve always been mine, and Alexander is mine too. The whole world is mine. I’ve won. You lost. Really feel this,” he commanded sharply, his devious smirk turning to an expression of blazing passion. “Remember this. It can always be worse,” he finished, taking a large inhale of Harry’s face before facing his subjects._

_Martin couldn’t say anything because he had his head screwed on straight, but he wanted to scream ‘Are you happy now?’ as loud as he’d screamed at Harry—he settled for doing it in his vengeful thoughts._

_“You two have been most useful. I may kill you, I may not, but you can have a break for now,” he said kindly, as though he were demonstrating some selfless act of compassion. “Get them out of here,” he commanded, not waiting for the Elders to disconnect the chains before sweeping out of the room and leaving the door ajar._

_Martin was thrown over the shoulder of one of the four Elders, and another did the same to Tanner, the two of them carried out like disobedient children going to a time-out. Martin tried to twist his neck to catch sight of Harry just before he’d lose the chance, but he only caught a glimpse of the emotionless stare he wore before they were in the hall. He was thrown into his and Tanner’s empty room and he immediately rolled over to the heap of body that was his lover as the door slammed closed._

_Tanner’s breaths were shallow and he was in the much needed process of death so he didn’t actually need his lungs, and Martin wished for it to go faster, praying that whatever dream Tanner was immersed in was a happy and joyous one, and not the broken-record repeat of what had just happened. He hoped he could catch some similar dream filled with positivity too, but...yeah, the odds of that were low._

 

***

 

“Martin,” Tanner croaked, his voice sounding like he’d had his voicebox stolen and then haphazardly shoved back in.

“I didn’t know you were awake,” Martin whispered back, tears welling from the large amount of reliving he’d just forced himself to go through and of course, at the lackluster sight and sound of his one and only.

“I don’t really want to be,” he admitted with an impressive chuckle, amazing Martin because he couldn’t think of a single thing he could even try to laugh at right now.

“I can’t...I can’t keep watching this happen to you, baby,” Martin mourned, connecting their lips with the softest of pressures because a feather landing on Tanner would probably hurt him. He looked a lot better than when they’d fallen asleep, there was no denying that, but he wasn’t cured by any means. The smallest of his bone fractures were smoothed, as were Martin’s, but the bigger ones on both of them were still offset and jagged. Plus the chest wounds Tanner had sustained, and the groggy hangover of an induced overdose...it was a wonder he was even coherent.

“It’s not up to you, and I mean that in the nicest and least insulting to you way I can,” Tanner mumbled, able to recognize his sentence structure could use some work, but he figured he deserved a pass for now.

“I’m so sorry, Tanner,” Martin sniffed, his words pressed and shaky as they attempted to pass through the devastated lump in his throat.

“I knew...from the moment I laid eyes on you in that kitchen...that you would be a wild ride. Harry and Zayn, and you. The three musketeers of trouble—” Tanner then paused to bark out a series of pained coughs, clearing his throat to continue in a quieter, less exertive tone, “—Niall and Louis were so nice to me. Without knowing hardly anything, they took me in their arms, and they defended me when Harry almost rejected me—”

“Harry was never going to reject you, love. He could see the decision in my eyes,” Martin assured with a smile, nuzzling their noses together and thwacking his head down tiredly on the cinder-block floor.

“What’s going to happen to him? I don’t remember anything after looking at you,” Tanner murmured, successfully holding back the shiver he automatically wanted to make because his body was far too frail for such a violent action.

“I don’t know, sweetie. Auron’s plan was to break him down, and I think he did. I think me screaming at him snapped something...I don’t know...but you were dying. And he wouldn’t stop, and if I’d lost you because of that, I never would have forgiven him. Ever. I think Harry and I are synced enough after so long together that my tone made him realize exactly what was happening, but…” he trailed, obviously finding the topic a hard one all-around to talk about.

“We have to get them out of here,” Tanner said determinedly, his eyes practically crossing as he mulled over how the fuck they were to accomplish such a fantastic feat.

“Us and whose army?” Martin sighed dejectedly, truthfully having gone over every option countless times and come to the conclusion that they were absolutely and irrefutably fucked.

“I know,” Tanner agreed sadly, refusing to cry because that would also be too painful to bear. “What do you think is going on with Harry right now? They haven’t come back for us yet,” he commented, wondering why the Elders hadn’t barged in to haul them down the lengthy stone hall to that one fateful door on the left.  

“I don’t want to think about any of that,” Martin stressed with a mediocre shake of his already thousand-pound-skull, squishing himself up to Tanner as they both groaned in the searing comfort. “Just lie here with me...baby, we...we might not make it out of here,” he admitted with great reluctance, locking gazes with Tanner when he turned his face sideways to regard him with an intensity that had Martin second-guessing his rather logical musings.

“We _will_ ,” Tanner asserted surely, making Martin look like a pessimist because as _he_ was the one who had lived through the worst of Auron’s hells, his heart was still unaffected. Naïvely, perhaps, but his confidence spoke millions in the face of certain demise.

“You’re right,” Martin agreed, mentally throwing in dying as an example of ‘making it out.’ “No matter what happens...we will.”

 

~~~

 

Harry wasn’t able to think of much even in solitude, away from the awful responsibility of helping or severely hurting his friends. He and his big mouth had ultimately precipitated a near-tragedy, and thankfully Martin had gotten them out of it. So he figured that was probably good. He couldn’t quite access his personality anymore—it was like he was trapped in the wrong body, or implanted into an actual corpse, his limbs as stone as his environment, his eyes staring but not seeing.

All he could think of was the image of Tanner on the wall; the lashes, the beatings, the stabbings, the slicings…

He tried to force the haunted vision out of his mind but he’d lost control a long time ago—he hadn’t even slept yet. A scent filled his nostrils and he flinched, a new terror arising that hadn’t had its time to shine yet because Auron had been ever-present. The scent penetrated his nostrils as though it was right under them, and had he come across it a night ago, he would be outwardly panicking right about now...but instead he did nothing; waited patiently for the scent’s owner to make his long anticipated debut.

He made not one move all the while the scent approached, just barely wrenching his eyes up to catch the scent walk through the slowly opening door, his silhouette shadowed on the floor by the torches in the hall until he came into the picture, looking every bit as menacing and beautiful as he ever had—like not a day had passed—Azazel.

His maker stood motionless in the doorway, exuding that innate, raw power of his like the God he was, tutting as he looked up and down Hadrian’s ruined body and state of mind, an expression of genuine empathy crossing his intimidating features. “My sweet child,” he cooed, sweeping his long dreads back over his shoulders and stepping into the lantern-light as he advanced on the catatonic Harry, his nearly white eyes being the only things Harry could find purchase in. “What has your brother done to you?”  

Harry couldn’t respond for a multitude of reasons, but the most prominent now was being in the presence of his maker after two thousand years of separation, having forgotten the scale of how dominating that aura he commanded truly was. He stared blankly at who he now knew without a doubt was an original vampire, his every attribute separating him from any other Elder on the planet, proving that he was _so much more_ than Harry’s borrowed species.

“My how’ve you grown, Hadrian,” he mused like it was a half-compliment, reaching out and brushing his knuckles down Hadrian’s sharpened cheek bone. “You’re in there, aren’t you?” he asked, lifting his chin to study his eyes with a scrutinizing gaze. “I’m disappointed in you, child. To think Auron could get to you so easily...you’ve grown _soft_ ,” he hissed, finally earning a startled flinch from the immobile Hadrian. “Oh, it moves,” he noted, letting go of his creation’s chin to poke around at his injuries.

Harry stayed as still as possible, enduring the discomfort of Azazel prodding at his broken bones like he was an experiment—yet, an experiment he _was_ to his maker. When Azazel began softly rubbing at his problem areas, though, a small sigh of satisfaction fell from his lips, indescribably calmed by his maker’s delicate ministrations—what a contrast.

“I told Auron to have some fun, not destroy you,” Azazel scolded to a vampire who wasn’t present, shaking his head in exasperation and shrugging in a manner that said ‘What can you do?’ “He’s not here, by the way. Auron went to America for a bit...I think I’ll keep you with me from now on. Would you like that, darling? Would you like to be free?” he purred, petting Hadrian’s hair and stroking just under his watering left eye.

Harry still couldn’t speak but he slightly nodded his head, grateful beyond measure when his ankle chains were swiftly removed as Azazel knelt down to take care of them. He then broke the first cuff off his left wrist, Harry’s sore arm dropping down to his side like a useless slug. He keeled forward and Azazel caught him effortlessly, an arm snaking around his waist as he slashed at the right wrist’s constrictions. The sudden release of constant, nagging sunlight was like getting washed in the warm hands of Jupiter, but Harry was still too drained to receive any resulting energy or vitality.

Azazel tightened both arms around his creation in a loving embrace as Hadrian’s right arm automatically found its way around his neck, the battered immortal hiding in his chest and trying desperately to tune out reality. “I’ll fix you, dear,” he promised, shifting them around so he could walk Hadrian out of the room and to his own personal quarters. “Auron needs to show me his worth—this is not an equal match,” he explained, walking them languidly down the hall and catering to Hadrian’s weakened pace. “I missed you,” he added, kissing Hadrian’s temple and laughing when the Roman audibly choked on air he didn’t need to breathe. “Don’t you worry about a thing, my child. A few doses of my blood and tongue, you’ll feel better in no time. Then you can get back at your brother, how does that sound?”

Harry was beyond confused at the shocking words he was barely registering as it was, wondering if he’d heard _anything_ correctly up to this point. Azazel was taking his side? Taking care of him? So he could fight Auron? Wasn’t Azazel _paired_ with Auron? Wasn’t he Harry’s enemy? The world’s? Harry didn’t know what to think, and he still couldn’t use his words, so he just trekked on under Azazel’s wing, the thought of original blood and endorphins in his system brightening his darkness just a notch—a notch, but it was enough.

 

~~~

 

Louis had no concept of time anymore, but he was pretty sure numerous days had passed somewhere up there; the sunlight bullshit had ended a while after Auron had left—perhaps he had gained some fucking mercy—and Louis had semi-slept his way through the sun cycle he couldn’t even confirm was real. Down here, however far down he was, the sun was a mere rumour; not nearly strong enough to penetrate into this chasm of candlelit, pitted darkness. _Unless you had a fucking flashlight of it, of course._

His eyes at least had healed a little bit over the duration of his ‘break,’ and blinking didn’t feel dumping a cup of salt on a flesh wound anymore, so that was good. Chancing a glance down his body, his skin seemed to be of acceptable elasticity and pallor, but his internal self still lacked the strength needed to get out of these Zeus-forsaken chains. _Heh. Stealing religious terms for my own. Never gets old._

His passing and relatively casual thoughts took a turn for the worse when his nose picked up the most relieving and worrisome scent imaginable—Harry. And something very _else_ , but definitely Harry. Auron and Harry smelled practically identical, just as they looked, but Louis could tell them apart relatively easily. He knew the twins couldn’t smell their differences, maybe because they’d shared a womb together, but Louis was sure. This wasn’t Auron.

“Harry!” he shouted, growing more antsy the closer—not to mention stronger—the scent became, reckoning he’d probably have about a minute until Harry was right outside his door, depending on whether he would stay on his same route or make some hard left. “Harry Styles!” he tried again, listening to and tasting the air for a better reading.

Yes, he was coming this way. He had an old and mysterious scent walking beside him, which was a huge cause for concern if you asked Louis, but he couldn’t focus on that—not when Harry was with it too. “ _Aelius Hadrianus_!” he bellowed, finally picking up the sounds of labored walking shuffling down the corridor.

Louis began to scream Hadrian’s name like a record on a malfunctioning loop, adding nonsensical shrieks into the mix to really stand out. He screamed and screamed and screamed as the scent of his lover grew closer and closer, and then, when he’d least expected it, the door of his room swung open.

“You’re a loud one, aren’t you?” a vampire Louis could only ever place as Azazel scolded with a disapproving glare, his hand wrapped tightly around Harry’s who was a foot behind him and standing on wobbly legs, gazing forward and refusing to meet Louis’ eyes.

“Hadrian!” Louis snapped to get his attention, parting his lips in surprise when Harry made no show of recognition. “Harry?” he tried again, boring his eyes into Harry’s stoic profile and rapidly theorizing what the fuck had happened to him.

“If you don’t shut up,” Azazel began with a sickening smile, dragging Louis’ worried eyes onto him instead, “I will do it for you. No. More. Screaming,” he stressed like a strict parent, a patronizing eyebrow raised as he stared at the rare combination of both his and Cináed’s child, challenging him to disobey the command so he could put him in his place.

“Harry, look at me!” Louis snarled, totally ignoring the immortal that you probably shouldn’t ever ignore, but he couldn’t help it. Harry was just _standing there_. “What happened to you? Answer me!” he barked, thrashing against his chains and feeling more desperate than ever to slip through the cuffs and escape the room.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” Azazel said blandly, hissing like a giant cobra when Alexander opened his mouth to protest that.

Louis squeezed his eyes shut to metaphorically guard himself from the force of the hiss, opening them again to find Azazel making to close the door, thereby ending this short contact he finally had with his lover after all this time. “No! Harry! _Hadrian_! FOR JUPITER’S SAKE, LOOK AT ME!” he roared, throwing every tiny piece of authority he could possibly have in such a disadvantageous situation.

He set fire to Harry’s profile with his stare, the sight of him gradually turning to a sliver and leaving Louis with nothing but a broken heart. Just when he thought all was lost, Harry’s eyes at the _last second_ suddenly flicked to his, staring deep into his nonexistent soul with a mirrored emptiness that had Louis’ unbeating heart skipping in shock. Harry looked like a hollow shell—but he’d looked at him, hadn’t he?—that had to be some kind of improvement. _What happened to you, my love?_

Their eyes had met for a total of one second, and then the door was closed, the two scents resuming their stroll down the hallway as though none of that had just happened. Louis stared at the spot their eyes had connected, replaying the moment over and over again in his head, unable to look away in fear of breaking the instant they’d shared. “The fuck?” he whispered so softly he almost didn’t hear himself, his sadness encompassing his frustration and plunging him down into a depth of wallowing deeper than his earthy location.

Auron’s relentless pestering to Louis that stirred his unintended desires and the unsolicited grace of vitamin D evidently amounted to nothing in comparison to whatever Harry had endured. Louis would trade places with him in a heartbeat, and it slowly murdered him to imagine what his love had gone through to break him that badly. To put a crack straight down his brain and take away his fight—his drive, passion, and staggering perseverance. What could have the power to do that? Was he next? Would they both truly die here?

Louis made the decision right then and there that he was going to do whatever it took to get himself out of here, and if that meant playing by Auron’s manipulative rules, then so be it. He had to plan a way to give into Auron without _giving into him_. It was going to be difficult to accept the evil twin’s offer without being presented the predicament of his pushy lustful advances...but Louis would do it. He had to. _Alright, Auron_ , he groaned in his thoughts, his determination and motivation rising above the sadness to give him a clarity he needed right now more than ever. _You win. We’ll do this your way._

With the formulations of a plan rushing into his head one detail after another, he contemplated what the first thing to do should be. Auron hadn’t been here in awhile, and it looked like Harry was in Azazel’s hands; what for, Louis didn’t particularly know, but it couldn’t be innocent and selfless. Louis could only hope that Auron would return soon (something he’d never wanted before in his life), so he could get out into those damned hallways, dignity in tact or not.

For now though, a little insubordinate screaming should pass the time just fine, right?

Nobody tells Aléxandros ho Mégas, Alexander III of Macedon, _King_ of the Ancient World—with a dash of Louis William Tomlinson—what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title was the question, can you answer it?  
> My favourite part is that you probably assume all this tunnel shit is the reason for my multiple angst tags. It's not.  
> Got a lot to do with Azazel, though.


	7. Such A Stupid Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh, whatever. Bruh, I've been dropping Halbum hints like bombs, did I already say this? Well they're everywhere. My referencing was stupid excessive this time around. Dunno if this chapter has any or nah, but lol they're around fasho. I couldn't help myself. Uh...yeah. Urkle. I can't really think of much to say. 好きにしろ :/

Harry had been slowly but surely eased out of his stupor by his diligent maker, but he still jumped at any unexpected touch, and he still hadn’t said anything. He knows that probably doesn’t sound like much improvement, but the memory of that room wherein Martin and Tanner had suffered so horrifically was one of the hardest things one could ever attempt to cope with—if coping was even possible.

He’d seen Louis too; he remembers that very clearly. It had been brief, and no words had come to the surface because he'd had none to give, but he’d forced his eyes to acknowledge him. Louis had been chained up to a wall just as he had, shirtless with Auron’s scent all over him like a cologne, and blood caked on his skin from the multiple entries of Auron’s twin fangs.

He didn’t blame Louis for the deeds done to him that he's sure the King had enjoyed all too much, but he'd refused to voice one word of that to him. If Auron even got a hint that he was still fighting for his love, the next step would likely be to traumatize Harry with hurting Louis right in front of him, and he wouldn’t be able to stop him. He couldn't let that happen, so he had to close himself off for good. At least for now.

His thoughts then landed on an old saying and he decided right then and there it was to be his new religion: out of sight, out of mind. _Of course._ If he wasn't presented with any more cruel ultimatums, his only weakness would dissolve into nothing. As long as he didn’t see Martin, Tanner, or Louis again, he could live free from that crippling fear of losing them. If he could let go of everything important to him, _really_ stop caring, nobody would have to die because they wouldn't matter anymore. Auron wouldn't have anything to work with. It sounded logical to him, and the hardest choice he'd ever made was officially set in stone. _I'm sorry, my dear Louixander. I have to protect you._

He refocused his mind and strove to keep his eyes closed—try for more sleep even if his mind was dead-set on haunting him—and it was _almost_ a success, but Azazel killed his chances when he suddenly chuckled and spoke softly into his ear.

“I know you’re awake, darling,” the ancient stated, petting Hadrian’s curly hair and resting his cheek against the top of his head. “I can practically hear your rapid thoughts.”

Harry sniffed and grudgingly opened his eyes, the first sights coming into view of his hands stacked in his lap, his thighs draped at the knee over the arm of the royal throne he and Azazel were sat in—while Azazel’s arm was likewise draped over those same thighs—and the original’s dark and warm chest under his cheek. He curled in further and sighed in admittance to Azazel’s accusation, sniffing up his maker’s neck in interest and whining when Azazel pulled him back with a firm grip on his hair.

“Last time was a gift. You’re not a child, Hadrian. Though I call you my child, because you _are_ , that does not mean you are without the use of basic words. If you want my blood or my fangs again, you have to ask for them,” he said sternly, his opaque pearl irises only a few shades darker than the whites trapping his Roman’s green ones, independently compelling Hadrian to speak without the use of or need for his lure.

“Can I take your blood?” Harry croaked, his first words since the horror building some small measure of confidence back up.

“Yes, was that so hard?” Azazel lilted, reaching back behind his head and pushing his heavy dreads over his right shoulder to give Hadrian room.

Harry didn’t waste another second, extending his fangs and greedily taking in the blood that had given him this existence in the first place. It was a nostalgic taste of immense proportions, as sour as it was sweet, and it filled him with the energy he'd lost since being attacked in the English fields...and maybe a little more.

Hadrian’s infant bite gave no pleasure to a creature like Azazel, whose child’s endorphins were only a small fraction of his own, but there was still an element of calm in the experience, and he let his descendant drink his fill while he stroked his bouncy hair in encouragement. He idly looked around at the gaudy effects Auron had routinely dropped into this room after stealing them from the rich, and found himself smiling to finally have the other half of his cherished Roman twins. How very long it had been since he’d had this one in his arms.

Harry pulled his teeth back out and struggled to breathe, the rush of strength to his bones almost equaling that of turning. He stretched out his arms and legs across the arms of the throne he already knew was Auron’s, simply by expensive aesthetic, and Azazel laughed as his stretching became so planked that his hips lifted right off of the original’s lap.

“Do you feel better?” Azazel asked, rubbing at Hadrian’s tummy until he fell back down to protect himself from the ticklish sensation.

“Mmhm,” Harry responded, giving his maker a desperate look as he watched him spit invaluable endorphins from his mouth—endorphins that could find much better use inside him.

“Your _words_ , Hadrian,” Azazel reminded, all too aware of just what his creation was after with his aroused gandering.

“Will you...please...take it back?” Harry asked sheepishly, baring his throat in the hopes that Azazel would accept his plea.

“You’ve caught me in a generous mood,” Azazel said with a smile, getting his left hand under Hadrian’s head and his right under his upper back, lifting him up while he leaned down to meet him halfway, digging his lengthy fangs into the spot closer to the back of his neck that he'd bit into the very first time in that Gaul holding cell.

Harry gasped and shook violently as the most powerful endorphins in the world (that's a fact) coursed through him, every lick of Azazel’s tongue blasting black dots in his vision. He let out little mewls and sobs of pleasure as Azazel’s drinking dragged on, soaking in the experience while he still could before it was over. “Yeah,” he panted, an orgasm sneaking up on him and promptly transpiring before he could even begin to prepare. “Fuck,” he whispered, trying to catch his breath as Azazel released him and sat back up. “Thank you, maker,” he mumbled, his eyes closed and lips parted as he chased the limited oxygen in the air.

“You earned it, little one,” Azazel praised, freezing as he detected a familial scent flying through the maze of the tunnels.

“What is it…” Harry asked, sensing the change in his maker and growing uneasy with his silence.

Azazel merely smirked, pinching Hadrian’s side playfully as he turned his attention to the door on the other side of the room, awaiting the imminent entry of the other twin who had certainly returned earlier than expected. This was going to be a hormonal hurricane.

After spending a few lost moments wondering what in the hell Azazel was studying so hard, Harry picked up on his brother too. He profoundly dreaded every second of this upcoming encounter, and he instinctively cowered into Azazel— _just_ in case Auron busted in with Martin and Tanner under his arms (though by his singular scent, he clearly didn’t have them). _But_ _what if?_

The raging bull of Auron then materialized through the harshly opened door and stalked toward the throne along the far wall, his face scrunched in appalled, almost betrayed fury as he jabbed a twitching finger at Hadrian’s recovering form in their maker’s gentle arms. “So it's true! You're even making him come! Why the _fuck_ do you have my brother, Azazel?!” he barked, grudgingly halting his approach when Azazel held up a dictatorial hand to bar him away from Hadrian’s nerve-racked and vibrating frame.

“I felt bad for him,” Azazel replied emotionlessly, already anticipating the storm that would trickle down from the wayward sky of Auron’s patience.

“ _Excuse_ me?” Auron growled, a fair toned down for the response he’d originally planned.

Azazel huffed to wordlessly scold him for his presumptuous complaints but answered anyway, deciding that it was high time Auron understand just what position he was in. In other words, that he wasn’t running the show anymore. “Your abhorrent ego-trip has long since lost its original objective, and I’ve become quite tired of it,” he stated, his white eyes shining at Auron’s battle for discretion.

“But—”

“You need to be focusing on your duties, Auron, not wasting both your own and my time tormenting your brother,” he chided, turning and spitting a collection of endorphins out of his mouth then shifting back to face him.

“We had a _deal_ , Azazel,” Auron snarled in contempt, unable to stop the flow of indignation from spewing into the conversation—this was important to him.

“And I’m keeping it,” Azazel assured, though whether or not he had any intention of keeping it would never be up to the eldest Aelius twin. “But no one will applaud you for killing your brother while he’s already defenseless. On your part, that is _weak_. You will have your fight for worth, but it will be on even terms. Skill against skill, not advantage. Until then, Hadrian is in my hands, and you will not touch him,” he finished, tightening his arms around the speechless Hadrian and challenging Auron to protest with his heavy stare.

“This is bullshit!” Auron spat, accepting the predicament but making sure that his opinion on the matter was blatantly clear. He ran his hands through his hair in agitation and scoffed to the ceiling, counting the ways he could sneak Hadrian away from Azazel and finding pretty quickly that there weren’t any to count...for now.

“Are you scared?” Azazel lilted, reaching deep into the pit of Auron’s nerves and pinching the biggest one he could find. “Are you scared of fighting as equals? Afraid you'd lose?” he baited, honestly just trying to boost the morale of his notoriously moody child.

“... _Fine_ ,” Auron hissed, taking his sweet time to glare all the daggers he wanted to direct at Azazel on Hadrian instead until he could finally look back up with a blank expression. “Have it your way,” he said, flipping around and making to stomp all the way out of the treasure room.

“Oh, and Auron?” Azazel added last second, smirking as Auron slowly turned around in trepidation. He obviously didn’t want to hear any more this visit.

“Hm?” Auron hummed in question, raising an eyebrow at his maker’s perpetually unreadable face.

“Shut that yapper dog up, or I will,” Azazel ordered, all three immortals present allowing the sounds of Alexander’s incessant screaming from within the tunnels to dance around their weighted silence.

Auron said nothing in response but adhered to the request, adamant to stop Lexy’s annoyances before he really was killed in here. Azazel hadn’t mentioned anything about Lexy being here before, but if he had his sights set...if he was paying attention...well, that terrified Auron. Whether or not he was much of a saint to Lexy, protecting him from Azazel’s anger would be impossible. He had to get this through to him.

 

~~~

 

Louis technically knew that what he was doing was stupid, and he was undeniably asking for trouble, but with the knowledge that Harry was here, albeit apparently not in the head, but _physically here_ , his sights were set. He would find a way to him no matter the cost.

He'd been routinely screaming in his little dungeon for what seemed like no discernable reason for hours, throwing in aimless requests to get him out of here and to pay attention to him, but he’d had to take long breaks in-between his cries because his throat couldn't take it anymore.

He was smack dab in the middle of one long-winded howl when his door smashed open, and he hadn't expected it because he hadn't used his nose in at least eight seconds. Auron’s sudden appearance was startling but this was exactly what he needed. He couldn't believe he was about to do this, but step one in his plan needed to be award-winning, and he knew he could do it.

“Lexy, you _have_ to stop screaming—”

“Auron!” Louis moaned in relief, wiggling around and hitting him with the single most sultry and lustful gaze he could force himself to make. “Come here,” he whined, eagerly leaning forward while he bit his bottom lip.

Auron blanched in an uncharacteristic display of shock, widening his eyes at Lexy’s request and then narrowing them in suspicion—this wasn't real. “Excuse me?” he said, a repeat of his earlier phrase that saw a much different connotation than the last.

“Where did you go? You were gone so long this time,” Louis whimpered, hitching his breath and tilting his head back. “I need you—come here,” he begged, his knees shaking with a need he was portraying flawlessly.

“I don't believe you,” Auron snorted, stepping all the way inside and kicking the door closed behind him, leaning against its frame and crossing his arms.

“So you'll give me release when I fight it...but when I finally want you, you cower away?” he challenged in a tone that helped him sound offended, licking at his fangs and sighing as he rubbed himself up and down the wall.

Auron’s eyes dilated as he watched the sight of Lexy in a sexual struggle; his raw lips, his arched back, exposed neck...it was all too much. He wanted nothing more than to take what Lexy was offering but it was too sudden. Too easy. “ _Do_ you want me?” he asked, crossing one ankle over the other and opening the grounds for a most entertaining discussion.

“The fuck do you think?” Louis bit, keeping his iconic snark intact to appeal to Auron’s gullible belief. If he was doing out of the ordinary things, but doing them with an ordinary attitude, that was sure to come off as honest, right?

Auron thought it was sketchy but made his advance anyway, figuring that either way it didn't look like he had anything to lose. He stepped up to Lexy’s restless form and stayed just out of contact range, one hand coming up to caress Lexy’s cheek and see what he would do about it.

The second Louis felt the touch of Auron’s fingers, he moaned and rubbed his face on his palm like a cat, cringing in his head but holding true to his character.

Auron blinked in surprise and held the other cheek, straightening his head and staring studiously into his eyes for any signs of ulterior motive. “This is too convenient,” he mused, scrunching his lips over to one side with furrowed eyebrows as he thought.

“Just touch me,” Louis groaned, his eyes shifting over to the cart that still hadn't been moved. “Give me blood,” he said, inclining his head in the cart’s direction.

Auron glanced behind him and suddenly cranked his head back to glare at Louis, an unforgiving hand slapping around his neck as he leaned in so close Louis had to fight not to cross his eyes. “Why?” he snarled, his sense of logic screaming at him that something wasn't right here.

Instead of conjuring a witty response, Louis used the new proximity to his advantage, wrenching forward against Auron’s guarding hand on his neck and smashing their lips together. He felt Auron’s jolt and his every thought was smirking because of it, noticing the slow change of Auron’s behavior as he melted into the kiss.

Auron’s arms found their way around Lexy’s back, his feet scooting him in closer until their fronts were pressed together top to bottom. He deepened the kiss and was elated to meet no resistance, Lexy encouraging his every touch with a rabid insistence. He still didn't know what to make of it, but there was no harm in testing this new cooperation.

He broke away and took two steps back to reach out and snatch a bag off the cart, returning immediately as he uncapped it and drunk half down. He then held it to Lexy and let him finish it off, tossing it over his shoulder and diving back in when they were both living creatures.

The rush of life within Louis did nothing to quell his stagnant weakness from these damn chains, and it actually only made him think about the flashlights being blasted into his face. He put those thoughts elsewhere and focused on the present, keeping his protests to Auron’s touch in a place he couldn't reach—he could not fuck this up.

Auron’s lips trailed down his jaw en route to his neck and Louis froze, well aware that it was not advantageous to be full of those endorphins he loved so much. Auron didn't notice his hesitation and bit into him at once, and Louis let out a sharp cry as his cock hardened without his approval, though he supposed that helped his plan. But the lines got fuzzy after that. “Fuck me,” he heard himself say, his own eyes snapping open in shock. _This is such a stupid plan._

Auron took his teeth out and wiped his mouth while Louis trained his expression back to desperate, the twin seemingly joyous to hear such a statement from his unpredictable Lexy. “Are you serious?” he asked just to make sure, his hands landing on Lexy’s hips and thumbing at the prominent bones underneath his jeans.

“What is it gonna take to show you I'm serious?” Louis panted, mewling when Auron’s hands snuck around and groped his arse instead. “Will you believe it when you're inside of me?”

Auron groaned at that and dropped his forehead onto Lexy’s shoulder, running his hands over everywhere he could get to and smiling in victory. “Probably,” he said in a low purr, chuckling when Lexy shivered in response.

“Well then hurry up!” Louis squeaked incredulously, like he couldn't believe Auron was taking this long (and honestly, he really couldn't). It was intelligent of Auron to be wary, yes, but Louis also knew there was no way he'd pass this up. It was only a matter of time, and that time needed to be now.

Auron huffed once again and straightened up to look at Alexander, scrutinizing every line in his face and speck in his bright blue and dark brown eyes for warning signs. He found none. Lexy, for the first time in history, was choosing him over Hadrian. “Alright,” he accepted, dashing over to the corner of the room and back in a split second with two identical metal cuffs in his hands that were undoubtedly charmed with sunlight.

 _Shit!_ Louis screamed in his head, his brilliant idea to get himself out of sunlight metal backfiring like shooting a gun at a landmine. _Mayday, mayday, mayday_! Despite the rather vehement alarms wailing in his head, he kept his composure down to the last detail, watching Auron as he took a tiny little key out of his trousers pocket and jangled it around in the keyhole to unlock the bullshit around his wrist. It and the chain that had held it up went loudly crashing onto the floor, but he didn't get much relief when Auron gripped his wrist and made to confine it again.

“How do you feel now?” Auron taunted as he clamped the new cuff down, shaking his hand to expel the slightly annoying effect of sunlight that touching the metal had produced, and then taking care of the second one.

“I don't care,” Louis asserted, intentionally gazing near Auron’s pelvis just to take the pressure off of himself.

“Really…” Auron deadpanned skeptically, his eyes flicking between Lexy’s and their trajectory. He grumbled wordlessly and dropped to his knees to do away with Lexy’s ankle chains, then slid his hands up the King’s legs as he stood to full height.

Louis nodded and was unexpectedly hit with a moderately sized wave of dizziness, his balance wobbling a bit as gravity began to pull him down to Earth. Auron caught him immediately and slightly shoved him against the wall, a steady hand pressing against the center of his chest to keep him upright while he kept the rest of himself away. “I’m okay,” he murmured, shaking his head to snap himself out of whatever that just was.

Auron carefully observed as Alexander regained his dexterity and wrapped both hands around his own, the King’s thumbs stroking his wrist as gently as a cat’s fluffy tail. And he had this coy look on his face that just... “You really are serious,” he realized in awe, his slack lips curling into a grin when Lexy grabbed his shoulders and jumped up on his torso with newfound energy, his ankles crossing over his lower back while he hiked himself up.

“Yes. I am. Now take me to bed,” Louis whispered into Auron’s ear, his tongue tracing up the Roman’s earlobe because he could only assume this twin would like it as much as the other one.

“ _Jupiter_ —fuck, okay,” Auron relented, throwing every line of defense he had away in a flash because Alexander was asking for him, and at the end of the day, it’s all he’d ever wanted from him. He carried him over to the bed and dropped him down on its mediocre softness, crawling onto the mattress and hovering over him. “You don't know how long I've been waiting for this,” he purred, sitting on his knees and shimmying out of his blazer, setting it on the bed out of their way.

Louis craned his neck upward to catch Auron’s neck, leaving fangless bites and nibbles on the skin while he side-eyed the coat. If the dagger wasn’t in there anymore, then he was in for a shitload of trouble; but if it was…

“I'm sorry for—for always denying you,” Louis said, forcing the wretched words from his tight throat. Luckily he could pass it off with a groan of pleasure instead of disdain.

“What changed your mind?” Auron inquired, walking his hands forward to line their bodies together and settle down in-between Lexy’s legs as he planted his lips all over his bare chest.

“Uh…” Louis fumbled, tangling his fingers in Auron’s familiar curls and arching his back as he moaned, scouring his mind for an answer to that before Auron realized he didn’t have one. “Because I wasn’t meant for the side of the light,” he said, knowing that sounded like a believable statement Alexander the King would say. That he was getting with Auron for power, and not love.

“I seem to remember a certain pacifist banishing me from his home because he found out I’d been killing humans,” Auron commented, his left hand scratching down Lexy’s torso to palm at his crotch.

“You don’t know how hard that was for me. I was a hypocrite—I’d been killing more,” he lied, truthfully having sworn off killing for that entire time period.

“Why did you lie? Hadrian was no saint—”

“You and I,” Louis snapped, yanking Auron’s head up to stare him in the eyes, “are never speaking that name again,” he ordered, his heart shattering as he said it because it was almost the worst thing he’d ever done.

“Deal,” Auron agreed with a lopsided smile, laughing brightly when Lexy shot up and ripped his shirt from his body.

Louis chucked the garment away and looked back and the skin he’d exposed, his eyes blinking rapidly as he zoomed in on two details he hadn’t seen in a very long time. “I...I forgot you had four nipples,” he laughed, his thumbs poking at the smaller-sized duds in uneven places underneath his main ones.

“How did you forget that?” Auron teased in mock offense, showing that true light and bubbly side of himself that deserved so much more screen time and never got it. “I’m hurt,” he added, looking down at his chest and back into Louis’ eyes.

“Sorry, I won’t forget now,” Louis chuckled, pressing his lips onto Auron’s again to hurry this along because his blood was on fire and he needed to get out of here.

Auron moaned in his throat and rolled his hips down onto Lexy’s delectable body, the King’s claws marking up his back like he was a scratching post. He wasn’t sure if his desires and guilty pleasures were the exact same as his brother’s so Lexy already knew what to do, or Lexy was just really good at reading people, but either way Alexander was doing everything spectacularly right. He kissed down to the left side of Lexy’s neck and sunk his fangs in, delighting in that notorious hitch of his breath as he came.

Auron had gotten the kind of reaction he’d been seeking but he was still drinking his fill, enacting little hisses to drive him even deeper into submission, and it was working.

Louis’ eyes rolled back in his head and he slapped his left hand down on Auron’s furthest shoulder blade, his other hand subtly and discreetly making its way over to the jacket that sat in a heap just a few more inches down.

Auron then rose up so suddenly that Louis nearly had a heart attack, thinking that he'd caught the journey of his hand, but it was only to bite his right shoulder. _This still sucks,_ he griped, now at an uphill climb because fangs lodged in his shoulder put quite the damper on reaching the jacket. The jacket _to the right_ of him, if you were wondering.

Nevertheless, he shifted around craftily to throw his left leg over Auron’s hips and rut against him, never halting movement to mask the reaching of his right arm. Auron responded with a chuckle and slid his free palm down under Louis’ trousers, grabbing a handful of his arse while he hissed his endorphins deeper down.

Louis squeaked and fought through the power of the bliss, finally clutching the jacket and whining in a high pitch to keep Auron’s ears on him. The twin’s hand was getting closer to his hole with every second and he frantically felt around for the inside pocket of his coat for that damn dagger that he didn't even know was there. _This is the LAST time I listen to my own ideas,_ he thought, whimpering and panting as another orgasm tried to take him over.

Just when he thought he'd lost, he felt a hard object under his hand in the silky inside of the blazer and he could have cried at the discovery. He tiptoed his fingers to the opening of the pocket and snuck them inside, grasping the cold metal and pulling it out handle first.

He had no way to effectively use it with this hand because most of Auron’s weight was crushing down on this side of his body, so he took the gamble of a lifetime and tossed it to his other hand, praying that he didn't drop it onto Auron’s back and ruin the surprise. He caught it. _Thank Zeus._

He grinned and got a firm grip on the handle, glancing down at Auron’s vulnerable neck and deciding that was his target. The twin’s wild hair was all over the place and covering his eyes—he'd never see it coming. He took a deep breath and reared his arm back, counting his blessings as he plunged the blade of the dagger deep into the side of Auron’s neck, right under his prominent jaw bone.

Auron choked around the knife in his throat and Louis struck his temple with the unforgiving metal on his wrist, the twin’s fangs ripping out of his shoulder as both hands came up to deal with the dagger situation.

Louis took the only chance he saw and rolled off the bed, scrambling to his feet and sprinting to the door where he then threw it open with impressive force and slipped out of the room. He figured he should close the thing behind him and was amused to find it had a lock on the outside—a lock that was probably rarely used because Louis couldn't go anywhere anyway. Or so they'd thought.

Once he'd thrown himself into the door to slam it, he twisted the lock to the right and snorted in amusement, pelting his feet on the ground with no particular direction while he kept his senses on high alert. His wrists felt like a thousand pounds each but he swung his arms to run despite that, flinching when he heard a raging screech of his name. Looks like Auron had gotten out sooner than expected.

He turned a corner and flew down the hall, looking over his shoulder every few seconds before turning one more corner and coming face to face with an Elder he hadn't seen since the day of his death—Michael.

“Whoa, slow down there, Alexander. Where you going, huh?” the Elder crooned, getting Louis in a chokehold and leading him back the way he'd been running from.

“You slug, get off me!” he shouted, trying his best to fend him off but being plagued with the strength of a human while struggling against an Elder (even if said Elder was laughably younger than himself) wasn't a good mix.

“I don't fucking think so,” Michael laughed, about to call out for Auron when his leader made himself known first.

“I can smell you, Lexy!” Auron roared from not too far away, chilling Louis’ boiling nerves because he knew that tone—Auron was angry. And not his usual everyday ‘I hate the world and everything in it’ anger, but his ‘I’m an unstable psychopath and will eat your cat’ anger.

“He’s over here, boss!” Michael yelled back, wrestling with the difficult King and rounding the last corner he'd turned.

“I know where he fucking is,” Auron snarled a little ways down the hall, his blood-covered form finally in sight and it was not a good one to see. He was shuffling against the wall and holding a hand over his neck, having evidently yanked the blade out and chased after Louis before the wound had healed.

“I hope we, uh...I hope we can put this behind us,” Louis cackled nervously, flailing against Michael when he tried to haul him forward.

“Lexy,” Auron began in a low growl, grabbing him by the hair when Michael dragged him close enough and tilting his head back to look at him. “I don't know that I ever explicitly stated where the line is that shouldn't ever be crossed—” He paused to hack out a wet cough, making some obscene gurgling sounds and then spitting the blood that came up to the side, “—but you _just fucking did_ ,” he barked, throwing his arm around Lexy’s neck and squeezing hard enough to stunt his airflow, lugging him back to the room and telling Michael to go fuck himself.

 _Great plan, King of Idiocy,_ Louis insulted to himself, having accomplished nothing and received rather foreboding aftereffects. What the fuck was Auron going to do now? He sunk his claws into Auron’s arm but it did nothing to help him escape, merely granting him purchase to walk alongside Auron instead of being pulled.

In not that much time (which was shameful because he really had tried to get some distance), they got back to the room, and he was thrown onto the ground like Auron had been trying to shatter his bones by doing so. He grunted from the impact and had only a second to reassess his position before Auron was on top of him, bloodied hands grabbing the waistline of his tattered jeans to remove them. “Fuck off!” he growled, delivering another swipe of his metallic wrist to Auron’s head.

Auron hissed and batted his hand away with clawed fingers, tearing three deep cuts into Lexy’s arm. “If you think for a second that fooling me was in any way smart, think again. I don't need you to say yes anymore, I got it earlier, real or not. Now? Now you don't _get_ a choice,” he stated, forcing Lexy over onto his stomach.

“It never would have been my choice, you manipulative asshole!” Louis bit, thrashing elbows back to hopefully make contact but he wasn't in control anymore and that was abundantly clear.

“At least I would have made it feel good,” Auron replied, just barely getting his pants down before there was a timid but insistent knock on the door.

Both vampires paused because it was such an odd thing to hear, their heads turning to look at the door with confusion on their features. Louis thought he recognized the scent on the other side but he couldn't be sure where from.

“... _What_?!” Auron demanded, slapping his hands down on the hard floor to support his weight.

Louis cranked his neck to watch as the door creaked open, revealing a crazy-haired, big-eyed female Elder in the archway. _Beatrix._

“‘Ello,” she quipped politely in her London cockney accent, clearing her throat and carefully making her announcement. “So sorry to interrupt, but we found Hadrian’s friends. They're still in England,” she reported, winking at Alexander and smiling at the glare she got in return.

“All of them?” Auron stressed, needing that clarified before he would agree to do anything with the information.

“Yep. Whole fuckload of ‘em,” she confirmed, patiently waiting for whatever Auron’s plan of action would be.

“Don't you fucking touch them,” Louis growled, fearing greatly for the safety of everyone in this world he loved.

Auron sighed heavily and dropped his forehead down onto Lexy’s back, patting him on the arse he’d been about to demolish and sitting back on his heels. “You know I touch whatever I want. And what timing, isn’t it Lexy? I’m going to go kill all your friends now! Then I’m going to come back and tell you all about it, and _then_ I’ll claim this tricky little body of yours,” he vowed darkly, leaning down to place a patronizing kiss on Lexy’s fluffy hair. “And Beatrix? If you _ever_ interrupt something like this again, _for any reason_ , I will _personally_ see to it that you are torn apart by baboons,” he threatened, standing to his feet and following her out when she flew back to give him room.

“I’m going to find a way to kill you, Auron,” Louis warned, knowing that if he were outside himself at the moment, he’d be cackling at his own baseless threats.

“I think you’d put my brother out of a job,” Auron chuckled, the earlier rage thankfully controlled to a manageable state. “See you soon, Lexy,” he said with a wink of his own, shutting the door and locking it now that Alexander was free to move around.

Regardless of the impossibility of escape, Louis still scrambled over to the door and kicked at it just below the handle, groaning in defeat because the door pulled open from his side anyway. Fat chance he was going to snap the lock and kick the whole thing through its metal frame. He fell against it instead and slid down hopelessly, landing hard on his arse and secondly yanking his pants back up in relief—relief that he hadn’t had to experience that rather forceful sex from Hadrian’s madman of a brother. At least for now.

He pulled his knees into his chest and wrapped his arms tight around the bones, hitting his forehead against them repeatedly until it started to hurt. He laid his face against his arms and stared blankly at the bed where the crime he’d committed had occurred, his gaze trailing across the frame until a glint of something caught his attention. There was only one lantern left alight in the room and the little flame’s flicker had illuminated something that Louis was highly amused to see—the dagger. It was still here. Auron had been too preoccupied with catching up to him that he hadn’t taken it with him.

Louis bit his bottom lip happily and crawled over to the weapon, dragging it noisily across the concrete and picking it up as he backed up to where he’d been. He held it up before his approving eyes and debated what he would do with it, hoping that Auron would already be in England when and if he realized he didn’t have it with him anymore, thereby remembering exactly where it would be.

Could it help him in his current situation? No, not really. This thing wouldn’t cut through his cuffs and he’d slit his own wrists a thousand times trying. But could it help him when Auron returned? Almost definitely. _Almost._ If Auron got the chance to come all the way back into the room, he’d certainly wrangle it out of Louis’ hands before damage could be done. But suppose he hid behind the door and waited for Auron to arrive, then struck out the second he walked in...could he get it through his skull quick enough to kill him? Would it work out that easily?

Well in this situation, with these kind of dire odds, his best shot was the only thing Louixander had left to his name—and it was high time Auron learned what it felt like to have this particular dagger in his brain.

 

~~~

 

“How close are we?” Erakus asked over the wind, having ran alongside the western English coast after passing Bristol (and occasionally fighting predators along the way) for about thirty minutes now without any understanding of how close they may be.

“Dunno,” Harlock answered back, holding tight to Jenner’s body as they flew down the terrain. They’d successfully dropped Liam’s vampires and humans off in Julius’s guarded territory, and Annabelle had decided to stay behind and look after them as well. Against the Sparrow daughters’ wishes, they were also ordered by their Father to stay there where they would be decently safe, and Kyösti and Lotta made their choice to stick with their granddaughters.

Øvind had then politely informed his company that he would rather take an eternal bath in pure sunlight than ever step foot near those tunnels again, so that was that where he was concerned, but that was fine. Harlock understood. The sparrow brothers had held firm that they would be joining the mission, so the whole group now included William and Veronica, Liam and Johnny, Jenner and himself, Lauren and Lawrence, Erakus and Marley, Niall and Zayn, Stacey and Jet, Niko, and Elijah.

They had found the nearest hospital after the transaction of creatures and looted two more oxygen tanks for Jenner and Johnny, and refilled the bag with the water bottles. At least they knew what to expect this time, but none who had gone before were stoked over potentially dealing with the Lost again. Harlock could only hope that Max wouldn’t be excessively hard to find, but he couldn’t shake this lingering feeling that such a wish might be too much to ask for.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Marley asked when Harlock never specified, his hand linked with Erakus’s as they both sought comfort in each other.

“I mean I’m not sure exactly how long we have left. We went east from the opening last time, not north. We don’t know how far down it is so shut your damn traps, we’ll get there eventually,” he responded, unbeknownst to Jenner’s apologetic look over his shoulder to those whom he’d irritatedly barked at.

“So we get to the tunnels...what happens then?” Lawrence asked, under the impression that a clear set of steps was advantageous to winging it.

“We beg Max to take us to Rome,” Liam stated bluntly, having priorly decided amongst the other Elders who knew Harry and his history best (Harlock, Lauren, Lawrence, himself, and kind of Zayn) that Rome was their smartest and most self-explanatory option. If they were wrong, they were wrong—but that was where they were checking first.

They’d already phoned the Italian Guardians and pleaded with them to wreak havoc on the predators of the capital, assuming that if Auron’s base was indeed inside the Roman tunnels, those hidden predators would fly up to the surface to ‘defend’ the city and leave the underground world to themselves. The Italians had agreed in a heartbeat because they’d all wanted a shot at battling as a large force in Rome, and now Harlock’s group just had to haul ass to arrive around the same blanket time they’d given to the Guardians.

They’d done literally every single thing they could to prepare for this; it was time to take a shot in the dark.

 

\---

 

Another ten or so tense minutes of sprinting, Harlock finally announced that they were in Falmouth and the coastal cavern was nearby, and the group who had come from it split up to search the thick woods for the ominous entrance. The sound of the distant ocean waves whooshed through the salty air and Jenner went through his mental list of coping mechanisms to use against the prospect of more panic attacks. He wouldn’t slow them down this time—not if he could help it.

“This is it!” Niko said with reluctant confidence, turning everyone's head to him as the scattered members of the group hopped across rocks adjacent to the bottom of a waterfall to gather at his location.

“ _Ahh_ , yes. The entrance to hell,” Jenner said brightly as he peered over Harlock’s shoulder into the gloomy abyss of the opening.

“That looks fucking terrible,” Niall said beside Zayn, the two perched on a higher rock than everyone else from lack of room.

“Definitely not ideal,” Zayn agreed, resting a hand on Niall’s shoulder to show him he was in the exact same boat.

“Well no use staring at it,” Erakus said, preparing to leap into the unknown the moment someone said the word “go.”

“I applaud your bravery, little bro, but you don't know what's down there,” Elijah chuckled, hating the concept of meeting the Lost again as much as everyone else who’d been through it already and knew what they’d be walking into.

“Monsters,” Erakus answered blandly, having heard enough detailed descriptions from the group to know a little bit about what to expect. “Let them come. I have the feeling this ‘Max’ of yours is scarier than all of them, he just hasn’t shown you that side of him,” he guessed accurately if he may say so himself. An original vampire that dwells in tunnels? Those two traits alone don’t represent a creature he’d ever underestimate, to say the least.

“Well you’re right about that,” Harlock agreed, realizing that if they wanted to get moving they’d need to who knows, _get fucking moving_. “Who has the flashlights?” he asked, looking around at the group with the clunkiest looking backpacks.

“Still me,” Stacey replied, bouncing up and down a bit to showcase how heavy her pack was.

“Alright. Liam, we’ll make a stop before the stairs into the tunnels to figure out the tank stuff, but if Johnny starts to get a little too winded on the way, we can stop at any time,” Harlock said to his fellow Englishman, sending a look of sympathy to his content-but-obviously-faking-it human because nobody wanted to do this; it’s just that everybody had to.

“Understood,” Liam replied, a heavy silence following as each member of the group waited for someone else to initiate the jump.

“Aw, fuck. Fine,” Erakus said, kissing Marley on the cheek and diving down into the entrance regardless of what waited below.

“Seems the time has come,” William sighed, grabbing his wife’s hand and falling into the Earth after their impulsive son.

“Here we go again,” Harlock groaned, gripping Jenner’s thighs and jumping down as his warlock squeaked from having his stomach flipped upside-down. He landed seamlessly and stepped aside as everyone else made their grand entrance and took a look around. “Stacey,” he called, waiting for the woman to get the picture and take out the flashlight.

“Oh right,” she quipped, doing her job and flicking the first flashlight she acquired on, shining it around at the interior of the top cavity they’d dropped into. “There,” she said, pointing the beam at the little uneven archway that took up one of the downhill corners.

“Alright, guys. Let’s go,” Harlock said, rolling his eyes when the Sparrow brothers (including Marley) raced each other to the passage to have the incorrigible glory of being first. Elijah and Niko should honestly know better, but by the look on William and Veronica’s faces, it was clear they hadn’t anticipated any other behavior.

“I love you, Harlock,” Jenner mumbled, hanging onto his vampire’s back with arms crossed over his chest and rubbing his collar bones with his thumbs.

“I love you too, sweetie. This time will be easier, I promise,” Harlock said in a tone that could almost be construed as a question.

“Oh sure. Except Johnny and I have to get knocked out by those Maxian fangs, and I'd really rather not,” he grumbled, closing his eyes as Harlock dipped down and walked through the passage on all fours, this first one thankfully being wide enough to keep them together.

“I know, love of mine. Think of it this way...at least you won't have to worry about breathing,” Harlock grunted as he maneuvered them through the horizontal cave tunnel, illuminated by Stacey’s flashlight that shone from a few bodies behind them.

“I guess,” Jenner sighed, kissing the back of Harlock’s neck and nuzzling the skin with his damp nose.

“Besides, you can deny it all you want, but I know you liked it,” Harlock chuckled, having been a weird mix of jealous and aroused by Jenner’s unraveled noises upon receiving the paramount and superior endorphins of an original vampire.

“I _will_ deny it all I want!” the scandalized Jenner asserted passionately, refusing to ever vocally admit how heavenly that experience with Max had been—especially to admit how much he was looking forward to having it again.

“Whatever you say, baby. All I'm going to say is I hope you dream about my cock inside you while you're passed out,” Harlock laughed, jumping down into the next cavity after getting to the end of the passage.

Jenner didn't grace that with a verbal response but he did nibble on Harlock’s ear, the pair waiting with Elijah, Niko, Erakus, and Marley for the rest of their party to slip through.

“This isn't so bad,” Erakus noted, shielding his eyes when Stacey’s flashlight nearly blinded him.

“We're not even there yet. This is the easy part,” Harlock informed, now looking forward to the moment Erakus would eat his words. He'd been far too presumptuous about this.

“Quit being bratty, Era. You don't understand how naïve you sound,” Jet seconded, a distant sound of approval from Veronica making her smile.

“Alright, alright,” Erakus accepted, promptly roughhousing around with his brothers and Marley when Niko threw a small rock at the back of Erakus’s head as punishment.

“Hey, Harlock?” Niall called as he dropped down onto the damp floor, followed by Zayn and then Liam with Johnny.

“Yeah,” Harlock responded, snapping his fingers to get the four testosterone-wracked boys to stop their antics before they caused a cave-in. _Not_ something he ever wanted to rush through again as long as he existed.

“Well I was just thinking...you said Max had to carry Jenner through the deepest tunnels, right?” he asked, Liam’s face going blank when he grasped exactly where this was going.

“What about it?” Harlock muttered, righting his attitude when Jenner kicked his hips with his heels.

“I mean how is Max supposed to carry Johnny and Jenner at the same time?” he asked logically, Zayn humming in thought behind him. The logistics of this endeavor had gone so vaguely addressed that when they tried to speak of details, they found they had none rationalized.

“I hadn't thought of that either,” Liam admitted, hiking Johnny up his back while the human in question contemplated it himself.

“Stack ‘em like pancakes,” Harlock replied obviously, harboring no wonders of any kind as to how Max would manage carrying two humans at once. He was an extraordinary creature—he could probably carry _all_ of them at once.

“You can be on top, Jenner. I weigh more,” Johnny said to the warlock he'd only recently befriended but already idolized from what he'd heard and seen.

“Aha, thank you,” Jenner snickered, the group finally all present as Lauren and Lawrence theatrically front-flipped out into the scene.

“This is quite the adventure already,” Lauren said in enjoyment, pulling her lookalike sibling in with an arm around his neck as they glanced around the area.

“Bloody stinks, though,” Lawrence commented, his face scrunching up in distaste.

“Trust me, it gets worse,” Harlock warned, already gagging on the future stench of the true tunnels and the grotesque creatures that inhabited them. “The Lost smell like rotting compost.”

“That's putting it lightly,” Jet added, cringing as she pictured those things running along the ceilings.

“We have two humans now, we need to be twice as vigilant as we were before. Once we're down there, we have to call for Max. I can't just automatically assume he'll be at the bottom of the stairs where we last saw him. Shouting his name is undoubtedly gonna bring those fuckers down on our heads, and we don't know how far we'll have to go before we find him, or he finds us. So just be fucking careful, all of you. Especially you two,” he stressed to Erakus and Marley, who looked offended to be singled out.

“Don't worry, Harlock. I've got them,” Elijah assured, meeting the proud stares of his parents and grinning in return.

“Alright,” Harlock quipped, letting Jenner slide down to his feet because the next passage was the single file line type. “Let's go.”

 

\---

 

“So this is just awful,” Niall said in distaste, looking around the firelit (via torch) tunnels of death. Never in his life would he have imagined the existence of places like this under the Earth, and considering an Elder like Harlock hadn't believed in them either was a real testament to their secrecy. Though...it may have more to do with the fact that the tunnels trap you in with ancient magic.

William had taken Johnny to carry and Veronica had taken Jenner, and they were both trustworthy immortals to keep them safe when the Lost showed up and everyone else needed to fight, so Harlock found a blip of comfort in the unsatisfying separation from his lover—he still hated it, though. “Stay on alert,” he said to evoke the sharpness his party needed to commit to, frowning at the two shallow-breathing humans they needed to protect. They all _needed_ so much and wanted none of it on their plates—a classic theme over the last month or so.

“Ready to run?” Elijah asked, him and his brothers kicking their feet up behind them and catching their ankles to stretch their quads.

“As I’ll ever be,” Harlock responded, kissing Jenner on his hard-lined lips as Liam did the same with his Johnny.

“Remember boys, if you pick up on any weird scents, you’re to stop immediately,” Stacey reminded the Sparrow brothers, her hands on her hips and her eyes merciless of any potential excuses.

“Stacey, you’ve got to be one of my favourite immortals of all time,” Veronica praised, amazed that someone other than herself was as if not _more_ maternal to her reckless children that severely needed all the scoldings they could possibly get.

“Nonsense, love,” Stacey laughed, wrapping her fellow Mother in her arms because she was the only other vampire who got it.

“We got it,” Erakus assured, pulling two identical scowls from the women who apparently didn't believe them.

“We're wasting time, we gotta go. Ready?” Harlock intercepted, clapping his hands together when everyone nodded diligently and put themselves on track. He took off running after taking the torch from Niko, only looking behind him once to judge where the humans were in the mix and then letting out the blaring call that could either save or gravely endanger them: “ _MAX_!”

 

\---

 

They'd been running and shouting for Max for a while, and they unanimously tumbled to a stop when it was clear they'd gotten the attention of the black-eyed immortals in all their disturbing glory.

“Is it them?” Zayn asked nervously, already knowing that it most certainly was. He'd never smelled anything like this in his life, and he didn’t know how to describe it, but Jet was right—rotting compost was selling it a bit short.

“Form a line,” Harlock ordered to those willing to fight, Liam flanking his side to lead the battle while Zayn, Lauren, and Lawrence scooted up beside them to fill the width of the hallway. Erakus, Elijah, Niko, and Marley bunched up behind them as another impassable unit, and everyone else gathered around the humans as a last line of protection.

“This is mad,” Lauren whispered, grabbing her twin’s hand as they squinted in the dark.

Harlock set the torch down against the floor and mentally prepared for the upcoming fight, mourning the fact that nobody had acquired a flare this time around (having lit the second one they'd had in the deepest tunnels on their way here), however, maybe that eerie red glow wasn't too bad a thing to be without. The flares _had_ helped them see, but they’d made everything look exceptionally terrible, so...he accepted the loss.

The telltale scuttling of the abominations’ approach tensed every muscle in every body that made up their group, and when the creatures finally billowed out on the ceiling, gasps of either horror or shock (probably both) filled the stuffy air.

“Hi, darlings,” Elijah sneered, glaring at their drooling mouths and snapping jaws in contempt.

“Wait...wait...now!” Harlock shouted, taking hold of the most opportune moment to strike out and let his inner killer loose, savagely tearing limb from bodies beside the powerful Liam who likewise was not showing any shred of mercy.

Zayn roared in fury and desecrated everything he saw, repeating the phrase “Protect Niall” in his head on a loop to stay grounded in his ambition. Teaming up with the Guardian twins turned out to be a brilliant idea, and they worked flawlessly as a trio to neutralize the front lines.

The Sparrow brothers watched vigilantly behind them to catch the stragglers, though so far there weren't any to catch. Even so, Erakus reached out at every open chance to deeply gash the throats of the “Lost” with his claws to make them easier prey, and Marley did it too but continuously let out fervent sounds of blatant unhappiness with the contact. Erakus agreed wholeheartedly with Marley’s noises—these things were disgusting.

Johnny’s sobs were breaking Jenner’s heart and he grabbed onto his hand for support, the two smushed together inside a half circle composed of tunnel wall and dependable vampires. “It's okay,” he whispered over the madness directly into Johnny’s ear, tucking the non-magic human under his chin when he burrowed into his chest. He stared through the gaps of his guardians and tried to make Harlock out in their limiting flame of a light source, but it was all for naught—he could only hear him. And if Harlock’s mindless roars of glorious battle went straight to Jenner’s groin, he only had to hide it from Johnny.

The spindly arms and legs of the Lost were just as unpleasant this time for Harlock to view as the last, and he was starting to worry whether or not Max had held up his end of the bargain. They'd run a fair distance in by this point and still no original had been detected, and what's worse, their yelling for him had brought a particularly loud crowd of Lost to them. A crowd that wasn't showing signs of dwindling with their efforts and instead pouring around the corner in a seemingly endless swarm. “Max!” he bellowed anyway, encouraging everyone else to do the same as they cried out for the only being that had dominance over these fucks.

The battle raged on as more Lost crawled into the scene, and hope of a break was nowhere in sight until Harlock finally inhaled that scent he’d been yearning for ever since taking that last step off the end of the staircase to get here. It was definitely Max. He was about to scream for Max to get his ass over here when Stacey and Jet beat him to it, simultaneous cries of “Father!” pouring from their lips.

A menacing hiss echoed through the tunnels and the Lost scattered like rats, all frantically tripping over each other to climb the walls and retreat via ceiling. The main fighters breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the walls as Harlock bent down to retrieve the torch, holding it up to alight Max whenever he reached them, which was now imminently soon.

Everyone who hadn’t yet met this original immortal were tensed like statues as they studied his scent and foreboding aura, but they tried to tone it down when they noticed how grateful the others were to be graced with his timely interruption (also how truly happy Stacey and Jet seemed to be).

Harlock and Liam collected their humans from the tight-knit group around them and made their way back to the front, spending the last few seconds before Max’s arrival giving them kisses on the face and lips.

“I beg you to stop howling like wolves to the moon,” Max bade tiredly, materializing around the left corner and flipping his long black hair out of his face when it flew forward, then crossing his arms over his toned chest and yawning as though he’d just woken up. “It’s frightfully annoying,” he added, glaring at the owners of the voices he’d heard the most of.

“Max!” Stacey greeted with a smile, walking forward and asking for a hug in her typical fearless way, delighted that Max was wholefully open to it and enveloped her in his strong arms while he beckoned Jet to him as well.

“My adorable little children, how are you?” he asked them, listening attentively to their positive responses and then regarding Cináed’s eyepatched descendant he’d come to _almost_ respect. “Where is Alexander?” he asked pointedly, his eyes glossing over the dark skinned human in the arms of yet another Cináed creation in his presence (one of _three_ , counting the bigenered twins). “You’ve come with several new additions, but none match the age your Alexander is supposed to be. Where’s your son, dear?” he asked to Stacey, deciding he was more willing to sit through her answer than the testy Harlock’s.   

“Will you take us to Rome, Father Max?” Stacey replied, saying without words that Alexander was most likely in that location.

“Rome is our best bet to find Alexander, Hadrian, our other two friends, _and_ Azazel,” Harlock informed, stepping forward with Jenner until Max’s black eyes pierced his one and froze him in his spot. “You do know where that is, right?” he asked in lieu of approaching, finding Max a most impossible being to read or even begin to understand.

“ _Rome_? You’re asking me if I know of Rome? _Everyone_ knows of Rome. I'm just wondering what Azazel is doing outside of Africa,” Max replied irately, his arms rubbing up and down his daughters’ backs as he scoffed at the eyepatch’s ridiculous inquisition. “How sure are you that our little Alexander is in Rome with Azazel?” he stressed, looking between the Elders of the group and Stacey pressed up against his chest.

“We’re going by sentimental history of the Roman twins that Azazel created. We can only assume that Auron would take Hadrian and Alexander into Rome for old time’s sake,” Stacey shrugged, a strong hunch leading her to believe they were absolutely thinking in the right direction. “I trust the Rome idea,” she added to sway Max in her favour, hoping that such a result would actually happen like she wanted it to.

Max hummed and looked around at the newcomers, judging their faces and confirming they were all harboring this same suspicion. Looks like he didn’t have much of a say in the matter. If he was to help them, Rome is where he would need to go. He deeply inhaled the new scents in his vicinity for their origins and huffed at a particularly intriguing find, gently guiding his daughters away to stalk toward a tall and lanky immortal with his jumpy blonde creation beside him. “Utul,” he stated in awe, sniffing up the side of the descendant’s neck and chuckling to himself.

“Sorry, what?” Zayn questioned, recognizing the spoken name that came from his widespread area of umbrella cultures but not understanding quite what it had to do with him.

“You both are children of Utul-Ishtar,” Max reiterated, patting the heads of the couple and snickering over their expressions of slow comprehension. “Utul’s genes are the ones I’ve gone the longest without encountering. How very special it is to find him again in the line of his family,” he mused while he lifted the chins of both examples to study them, a great deal of memories flowing back to him of another time in another world.

“Can you take us to Rome?” Zayn asked respectfully, utilizing the great deal of attention being devoted to him and Niall to bring Max back to their situation.

“Oh fine,” Max chuckled, letting the pieces of Utul go free while he kept the knowledge of Sukarno’s single present descendant here to himself. If they didn’t wish to know of their roots, he wouldn’t force the information—he didn’t want to speak on his siblings’ behalf, anyway. Most would not appreciate their names being recited carelessly and without reason. Max on the other hand would appreciate it greatly; his forgotten name would be nice to be reunited with. “I’ll need those two humans when they cannot continue, just as I did last time with you,” he said with a point to the flavourful warlock, who blushed a deep red and shied away from his recognition. How adorable.

“We’re aware of the requirements,” Harlock said reluctantly, Liam clenching his teeth together so he wouldn’t accidentally speak out against said infuriating requirements.

“Very well,” Max quipped, scooping his daughters back under each arm and turning them around to lead the way as a family, followed promptly by the single most entertaining group of immortals Max had come across in thousands of years. “To Rome it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suuuuuch a stupid plan. But at least it kinda got him somewhere. He's now free to roam around at least. But Harlock and them are coming to save them, right? I mean, surely that will lead somewhere, right? They'll succeed, yeah? Wouldn't you say? Or do you know me...


	8. Centuries Erased

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws this over the wall I'm hid behind, peeking over the top with a shield and a war helmet.*

Harry knew the Guardians of Italy were making a ruckus above ground because nearly every predator in these tunnels had frantically run around like headless chickens to get everything together and go meet them at the city’s surface, and he had to wonder if the Guardians of England had anything to do with it. It had been at least a day or so since Auron had left without telling Azazel where he was going, but he’d looked quite smug as he’d said his farewells. In light of that, Harry also speculated whether his departure had anything to do with said English Guardians, but he strove to ignore any and all blowbacks and outcomes of this catastrophe. He couldn’t afford to care.

Harry was now back to his old self with the help of Azazel’s selfless actions on his behalf, but he was scarred. Fractured. He may be at his physical peak, and overflowing with original blood, but his former mind remained in a locked place he couldn’t access—wouldn’t _let_ himself access.

At the moment he was draped across Azazel’s lap like he’d been nonstop since being freed from the dungeon wall, the only changes in position occurring when Azazel put Harry to bed and cuddled him from behind all day. His maker was just as affectionate to him as he’d always been, but the memory of him tearing humans apart (more violently than Hadrian ever could) was always fresh in his mind. Azazel wasn’t always so gentle and caring. He used to _eat hearts_...

“Tell me what dwells in your thoughts,” Azazel murmured, caressing Hadrian’s cheek and lightly tracing the bone within it with a sharp claw.

“What Auron intends to do,” Harry grumbled, his dissatisfaction with uncertainty surely surfacing on his features. He could feel the annoyance on his face.

“You're angry again,” Azazel said confidently, an ambiguous happiness to the accusation which had Harry turning his head to regard him with curiosity.

“Did you really have to put this around my ankle?” Harry deflected as he shook his leg for emphasis, following Azazel’s eyes to the mentioned object and glaring at it hatefully.

Azazel had dressed him up as a eunuch consort in skirts and flowing fabrics, and Harry had worked hard to accept that (pick his battles), but it was the small measure of restraints that had really pissed him off. See, some time ago now, Harry had finally gained enough strength to stand up straight without falling, but it was only to find that Azazel had additionally slapped a metal cuff around his bruised ankle, keeping him close like a house pet on a leash. A great insult to his honour, and he was now recovered enough to be furious with it.

Harry didn't understand how he hadn't noticed it before, but Azazel had clearly had a ball with him in his vulnerable state. It wasn't even sunlight metal on his foot—it was purely just for show. “And what's with this get-up?” he added, glowering down at his whore costume and picking at it vexedly.

“You're a Roman, Hadrian. I want you to look like one; they were decorative folk, weren't they?” Azazel reasoned, a presumptuous hand sliding up Harry's thigh until he batted it away defensively.

“Can we get back to my brother?” he asked commandingly, refusing to look into Azazel’s eyes because he realized he was being far too short with him and didn't want to see the disapproval that his maker surely bore.

“What about him?” Azazel asked plainly, his tone suggesting he was legitimately curious and not just pushing Harry’s buttons.

“I can't lie to you, Azazel. But I don't think you realize that you can't lie to me either. I know you have something you want to talk about,” Harry asserted carefully, praying that it had something to do with this infamous ‘fight of worth’ he'd heard several times now.

“Fine. Your brother has hurt you...I would like to know if you desire revenge,” he proposed, stealing Harry’s instant shock because the offering was a gripping one. Harry’s eyes blazed with a guard that Azazel knew well, and he didn’t need to ask to understand that his creation was silently saying “I don’t trust you.”

“How would I get it? Why would you let me have it?” Harry asked, brows furrowed in a hard line, arm crossed in uneasiness.

“You must first understand my motives, child. I allowed Auron to bring you here, yes, but it was because I missed you,” Azazel explained, twirling a lock of the Roman’s hair around in his perpetually clawed finger and letting it drop onto his uncovered chest. “He brought three extra children with him, and wreaked a bit of havoc...however, I had promised him time to spend with you so I did not intervene. I accepted you may get a few lashings, but it was worse than I thought. This is my fault.”

Harry was utterly stunned; it wasn’t everyday that Azazel would admit some flaw in his decision making skills, or apologize for another’s cruelties, and Harry had no clue what to make of it. What in the world _were_ Azazel’s motives? Surely “missing him” wasn't the whole truth. Would he ever truly know? “My brother is out there taking over the world, but that doesn't interest you, does it? I knew you had nothing to do with that part…” he began, giving Azazel time to confirm or deny.

“Correct,” Azazel snorted, having never been concerned with such frivolous endeavors.

“So what are you after?” he challenged, squinting his eyes when Azazel bit his bottom lip in amusement. “Tell me!” he demanded, struggling to leave his maker’s lap and quickly surrendering when Azazel tightened his grip and hissed at him.

“I’ll start from the beginning. Pay attention and don’t move,” Azazel growled, ruffling his child’s hair when he submissively obeyed. “When I found your brother, he had everything to fight for and no way to do it. He was stumbling drunk beside an empty market stand, screaming to the heavens about why they ‘did this to him,’ and I took it upon myself to give him an opportunity he wouldn’t receive anywhere else,” he said, a fond look softening his face as he remembered the first moments spent with both of them—the Aelius twins always had been his cherished favourites.

“You turned him because he was drunk and upset?” Harry asked boldly, not allowing himself a shred of sympathy for the earlier pains of his twin; that debt had long since been paid over full. Ask his parents, Antinous, Damianos, and Alexander.

“He wanted an escape from his unstable mind; that I could not give. He also wanted to overtake his brother and rule the Empire in which he was born; that I _could_ give. He accepted my terms prior to receiving my blood, which was to kill you and secure his rulership, then to come find me and tell me when he did. I thought it was that simple,” Azazel snorted, his memories flowing back like a waterfall as the beginning was resurrected.

“Why would you set out to turn me then? That would only hurt Auron’s chances…” Harry reasoned, in dazed disbelief that he was _having this conversation_.

“I didn't, Hadrian. That was destined,” Azazel said matter-of-factly, causing Hadrian to flail and roll right out of his lap onto the ground with a mighty thump. “Are you well?” he asked in concern, widening his eyes when the wily child popped right back up.

“You _didn’t_?” Harry demanded, finding the notion of it all being a happenstance of fated coincidence a rather ludicrous one to put weight in.

“No, dear. I was in that dungeon for personal enjoyment, as I routinely did, choosing the ensnared humans worthy of my genes, and you were quite the surprise. When you were thrown in...well, I immediately knew who you were. You were ‘the brother.’ I heard your side of the story, realized Auron had purposefully left out a few of his misdeeds, and decided I’d even the scales,” he said, watching the rapid transformation of Hadrian’s facial expression as he processed the information.

“Except you _didn’t_ even the scales,” Harry bravely scoffed, his mind revolving around the moment he’d found his brother to be an immortal and had overpowered his advances with no real effort on his part. “I was always stronger than Auron.”

“I know you are,” Azazel agreed with the utmost pride, beckoning Hadrian to return to his lap and snaking his arms around his torso when he did. “That was proven after we parted—when Auron came crawling back to me in a most depressive state over your transformation. I confessed it had been me to turn you because of his lies, and made a deal with him that if he could kill you now with this stark change in species, he could have the world. The thing he wanted above all else,” he said breezily, as if that brief arrangement _hadn’t_ wracked utter ruin on Hadrian’s life. “I thought it would be fun to watch the feud play out, but it has turned into the longest ongoing battle I have ever seen from any other two parties in this world. Worse than me and my own younger brother.”

“Why didn’t he just kill me when we lived together?” Harry asked to himself, still enraged at himself for buying into Auron’s contrived ‘revelations.’ That ignorance had cost Alexander his life, and Harry his happiness.

“He wanted you to see him rise to the top—and he wanted to kill that Alexander he always talked about,” he said, causing a slight jolt in Hadrian’s spine that he corrected urgently, trying to pass it off as some nonexistent muscle cramp. “He wasn’t in any rush. He had a many tiresome things to do. Besides, there are things about him that you don’t know...killing you wasn’t ever his first concern, even when I pressed him to. Threatened his life over it. No matter what, he never did.”

“It’s obvious why—he wanted me to feel pain. Pain that would make me wish I were dead. That’s why he always went after my lovers. Regardless, why do you favour _him_ so? Where were you when _I_ was suffering?” Harry snarled in hurt, shoving away from Azazel before he was instantly reeled back in as per usual.

“Because _you_ didn’t need me. _Auron did._ Auron is special to me. He’s as fragile as he is driven, and that instability drew me to him like a moth to flame. He latched onto me like a stray and I felt the need to keep him under my constant protection. You, Hadrianus, were independent, naïve, and laughably arrogant. I tempted you with a mere smidgen of glory and you ate it up like a starved animal. You were self-centered, perhaps even obsessed, and you desired immortality for all the wrong reasons. I admired you, and I was proud of you, but you were unworthy of my affections,” he said apologetically, patting Hadrian on the thigh like that made up for everything.

“So why are you helping me?” Harry begged, offended that there was even one creature on Earth who would value Auron at a higher scale than himself. “Why would you ever help me? If you love Auron so much, why turn me? Why not kill me then? What the fuck do you want?” he snarled, pelting his maker with a mighty glare that he barely noticed himself doing.

“Kill you? And destroy that magnificent, elegant fearlessness you have? No, I knew you would make a fine vampire; you were well worth the title of being my direct descendant. You're beautiful, Hadrian, and I love you. Your strength and vigor were already noteworthy as a human, and I knew it would only progress. It was _my pleasure_ to bring you into this life,” Azazel praised, confusing his child likely more than he ever had been, but it was the full and honest truth. He couldn’t let that Aelius blood go to waste, and Auron needed a goal to work toward that could feel more rewarding once he’d achieved it than an easy kill.

“But why help now?” Harry asked again, giving up the fight and collapsing onto Azazel’s chest while his maker chuckled and resumed petting his hair.

“You’ve matured now, Hadrian. No longer are you the uppity prat you once were. I’ve gained a new respect for you, my love. And I will let my Auron have his shot at killing you, but I would not allow him to do it by unfair means. That is no different than what he’d set out to do before I’d found you first—I won’t have it,” he informed, hoping that had gotten the point across because he didn’t feel inclined to repeat himself.

“And if I kill him instead?” Harry asked, removing himself from the crook of Azazel’s neck to stare into his eyes, wondering what would happen if those tables were reversed. Would Azazel let his precious Auron go?

“You’ll have your chance shortly,” Azazel informed with a smirk, picking up on Auron’s scent traveling through the caves above the tunnels.

“Can I have more of your blood?” he asked to charge his energy to its maximum, pouting when Azazel laughed and shook his head.

“Skill against skill, not advantage. If you took from me, I would let Auron do the same. It will always be matched,” Azazel explained, standing with Hadrian in his arms and setting him down in the throne. “Now you wait here, little bird, while I go fetch him. I suspect he’s heading for an alternative room than this one, and we need him here, don’t we?” he patronized, brushing his knuckles along Hadrian’s jaw because he never tired of its artful structure.

“I’ll be here,” Harry pledged, making himself comfortable in the chair and wiggling his ankle chain around so he could cross one leg over the other without an obstacle.

“My good boy,” Azazel praised with a smile, dashing off out of the room to go track Auron down and steer him in the right direction.

Harry sighed as he wondered how this would turn out; he could very well be standing over Auron’s dead body in a matter of minutes. He couldn’t imagine the glory of a moment such as that, and to think it was upon him gave him all the motivation one could need. A few troublesome words of Azazel’s kept popping up though, and he ruminated on what they’d meant: “.... _there are things about him that you don’t know...killing you wasn’t ever his first concern_.”

Why? Why wouldn’t killing him be Auron’s first concern? Every little detail and event in their lives had pointed toward that goal, but he had to admit Auron had passed up a many perfect chances to see that through. Had he really wanted Harry to acknowledge his supremacy over mankind that badly? Badly enough to let him live all this time? Had killing Alexander made Auron happier than killing him would? Why wouldn’t he just get him out of the way after letting him feel the pain of losing Alexander? What are these things he doesn’t know? What _is_ Auron’s true first concern?

In his head, Harry thought he’d been pondering these important questions for quite some time, but in reality, Azazel had returned with Auron under his arm not two minutes after he’d left to collect him. Auron looked furious to be in the position he was, and Harry couldn’t deny he didn’t like it either. Whether or not fighting each other was tempting for the both of them, it seemed too abrupt and sudden to have it happen like this—they had things to talk about. Didn’t they?

“Auron, your brother is fully prepared to fight you. Are you?” Azazel asked, willing to give Auron the processing time he may potentially need because he’d sprung this on him without warning and that would only be fair.

“This is not how I planned to do this,” Auron noted foremost, scowling when Azazel knelt down beside Hadrian and undid the chain he’d evidently decorated his ankle with. “And it’s not how I planned to spend my time upon returning,” he said with crossed arms, hunching his shoulders up petulantly as Hadrian stood and stretched his legs.

“Where did you go anyway? Was your mission a success?” Azazel inquired, changing the direction of his questioning because he found he didn’t care about the location Auron had been in. England, by the scent of him.

“No. It wasn’t,” Auron griped, ashamed to admit that he’d stalked off with a purpose he hadn’t been able to fulfill. He’d gotten to England and Hadrian’s friends had either become invisible, or had left the country entirely. They were nowhere. He’d slaughtered that information’s messenger and every vampire with him in return for the goose chase. The distraction had robbed him of quality time with Alexander and for what? Fat load of nothing.

“How unfortunate,” Azazel lamented, truthfully not caring much either way because it was just as inconsequential now as it had been before. He tended to pay negative amounts of attention on Auron’s side missions because there were too many to count and didn’t interest him in the slightest. He was proud of Auron for taking the final steps to world domination, but that’s as far as his contributions or moral support went.

“You expect me and my brother to fight in a room full of gold?” Auron reasoned, fearing the destruction their battle would inevitably cause. It was sketchy enough to do it in the tunnels—they could bring the whole place down with one too many wall slams.

“You’re out of line, Auron,” Azazel snarled, cutting off any potential remarks Auron could make out of his personal unrest with the situation. “No, it will not be here. Not another word,” he warned, taking Hadrian under his arm and snapping his fingers at Auron to follow him as he led them through a scarcely traversed hall toward the largest space for miles that rivaled the size of a coliseum. “Keep up,” he ordered, sweeping down the length of the narrow passageway and pushing Hadrian in front of him to make room while Auron reluctantly trailed behind.

It didn’t take long for the trio to pool out into the wide open grounds that were admittedly ideal for a fight between the Roman twins, but neither made any move to initiate the event that was being pushed onto them. It wasn’t that Auron didn’t want to, because he _did_ , but Azazel had been right—he _was_ nervous—but he also wasn’t about to confess that.

“Best of luck to the both of you. Don’t cause a collapse,” Azazel said to offer his only words of advice, skipping across the stone floor to take a seat on the outer ledge that encircled the large oval they were currently brooding in.

“Have you anything to say?” Auron asked first in their birth tongue of Latin, planning out the fight accordingly to whatever Hadrian would respond with.

“Of what variety?” Harry challenged seamlessly in his old language, because apparently this talk would be had in that manner, dodging his brother when he lunged for him with claws out. “What—could I possibly—say to you? After everything you’ve—done to me?” he grunted, blocking hits and simultaneously trying to land his own.

Auron leapt back at those words and held his hands up, pausing all physical actions to address the shit Hadrian just spewed from his mouth. “Everything _I’ve_ done? Sure. And what of all that you took from me?” he shot back, the two brothers walking in a large circle around each other as they began the conversation that both of them had always yearned to have.

“I took nothing from you. You’re getting us mixed up,” Harry scoffed, halting as he crossed his arms and attempted to glare Auron to his true death.

“My _love_ , Hadrianus!” Auron shouted incredulously, two hands slapping against his chest to demonstrate the autonomy of the accusation. “You single-handedly stole my ability to love anyone or thing in this world!” he roared passionately, hissing at Hadrian’s look of skepticism.

“Love wasn’t an ability you ever had—”

“How could you say that?!” Auron demanded, striking out to land a fist on his twin’s face when he effortlessly dodged once again. “Have you the memory of a fish? I loved you, Hadrianus! With all my heart! And you forsook that. You destroyed me and every morsel of that love I held so dear,” he spat, forcing his tears to stay inside his head because he would not fall prey to emotions at a time like this.

“How did _I_ —in _any_ way—ruin our relationship?” Harry begged, actually curious to upend this side of his brother because he hadn’t expected a segment of this composition to ever exist in a conversation like this. “You were sick, Auron. There was nothing I could do, and the decision of the Empire fell onto me without my say—they forced me! I didn’t want to do it—you know that!” he growled, a whole mess of suppressed feelings clawing their way to his present. “You promised it was fine, but you hated me for something I had no control over!”

“ _That_ is a clever lie you constructed to take the blame off yourself. I never hated you for the throne, Hadrianus. I hated you for leaving me!” Auron explained heatedly, glowering at the object of his suffering and mourning the outcome of the crutch he'd been born with.

“So you hated me for my tours?” Harry asked to clarify what the fuck the problem was, so far not finding any fault whatsoever in himself and his actions.

“You really are the stupid one, Hadrian,” Auron chuckled, running two hands down his face in exasperation that he had to spell this out. “You may think you were only ‘doing your duty’ but I assure you it was much worse than that. You protested, yes, but the moment you saw the glory, you changed forever. You let it get to your head, and turned into the monster that murdered my little brother. Fame took you over, your vanity grew like a plague, and you were suddenly larger than life and so far above me you had to look down with a telescope,” he bit, his eyes flicking to Azazel on the sidelines and rolling in annoyance because their maker may as well have had a tub of popcorn in his lap.

“Lies…” Harry said unsurely, scrambling to see his and Auron’s story from the opposite perspective of his own. There hadn’t been anything he could do for him...that was undeniable...so why did he feel like shit?

“Are they? You let me disappear without a second thought...just as Rome did. They erased me—the mere memory of me—from existence as a whole; pretended I’d never been born; and you let it happen!” Auron reminded with disgust in his tone, his forgiveness on the topic having irreversibly run out ages ago.

“I fought for you, Auron!” Harry asserted, riding the wave of a long forgotten memory that flashed behind his eyes. “Mother and Father wanted you dead! They paid for your assassination, and I killed that man before he could get to you. Don’t ever tell me I didn’t fight for you!”

“I _know_ they did,” Auron sneered, that action having been a driving force in why he got rid of them himself. “All I ever wanted was you, Hadrianus. You, who made me feel whole, that lifted the pain from my life with a simple smile. Instead, I watched you grow to be an arrogant and shallow version of yourself I didn’t even know anymore. You fucked everything that moved, killed all who opposed you, even executed those who didn’t gift you with luxurious enough treasures, and I couldn’t take it anymore. And when you fell in love...opened your heart and that hidden warmth I’d missed so dearly to someone else, whilst completely ignoring my existence...I broke,” he said with a slight shake in his voice, stepping away when Hadrian took one forward.

“And your answer was to take that love from me?” Harry spat, refusing to acknowledge any past crimes he may have committed because they could never amount to the cruelties Auron enacted in response.

“It was to take _all_ love from you; just as you’d taken mine. You turned my heart black and cold, and all I wanted was vengeance. But you still don’t fucking understand! It wasn’t always my fault. I couldn’t always help the things I did...I wasn’t always the one pulling the strings...I waged a war with myself every time, and ended up losing to my impulses. And you _knew_ I had this issue, and you still cursed me for it. You cursed the day I had been born, and the hurt inflicted by you turned to a fury that ate me alive. Turned me into what I am now. I told you that day that I would curse your entire future, and I _have_ ,” he said proudly, gesturing around at the circumstance they’d found themselves in and proving that he had indeed fucked with his eternal future like he’d vowed to.

“Are you happy now?” Harry asked simply, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head from the exertion of his emotions. “You got me back a million times. Are you satisfied?”

“Not remotely,” Auron negated, appalled that his brother still didn’t seem to get it. “You’re all I want and I’ll never have you back. I ruined those chances as much as you did, and now I have to kill you,” he said confidently, dismissing the very real fear that a battle with Hadrian might not land in his favour.

“Why did you kill Alexander? I know you had feelings for him,” Harry stressed, this last piece of the puzzle needing to be set before he could carry on with their imminent final showdown.

“I did,” Auron chuckled tonelessly, a lopsided smile full of sadness taking over his face. “And I do,” he continued, staring hard at a patch of lighter stone on the ground to hide away from brotherly eye contact. “I killed Alexander because I couldn’t have him either. And you didn’t deserve him. You never did.”

“I never claimed to,” Harry instantly replied, somehow agreeing with Auron for the first time over this.

“It was hard for me to do. But neither of you would have ever let me in. Over things I did in the past...in defense of how _you_ treated me. I didn’t need that constant reminder that I was on the outside of your hearts, so I got rid of the third piece...but then he came back. And with him, the infatuation I’d tried so hard to forget, but it’s no matter. Because he’s mine now. I’m taking him this time,” he promised, finally dragging his eyes up Hadrian’s body to stare into his eyes and dare him to argue that.

Which he did. “You can’t...have him,” Harry said sternly as his muscles quivered and twitched with a fiery passion, his tone low and gravelly as he strove to contain his rage. “Alexander is the one thing you cannot ever have. I won’t let you. He is the only thing I care for—the thing I survive for—and you can’t touch that. Not even death can keep us apart, as you’ve seen, so you can go ahead and keep trying...but he will never be yours. Not him,” he snarled, his skin burning with the itch to attack, his body deciding that this talk was over. “Alexander has always and always will be entirely mine, and I know you know that.”

“I do know that,” Auron agreed, in a stagnant disbelief that Hadrian still thought it was all about Alexander when the vast majority of Auron’s grief was centered on him. “But you should see how he responds to me. With you out of the way, you have no idea how quickly he would fall into my grasp instead, and I can’t wait to watch that happen.”

 

~~~

 

Azazel _had_ been thriving to listen to their professions of real, raw emotion, but the topic of Alexander had destroyed their progress in an instant and the fight was on from then on out. Words of honesty diluted into Auron’s taunts of how good Alexander felt under his body, and Hadrian’s feral responses concerning how his brother would never know what it felt like to be loved by Alexander.

They threw each other against every patch of wall available, slashing the other’s skin and breaking every bone they could reach, all the while screaming about Alexander—the thing that fueled an overwhelming amount of their aggression. Azazel followed the grappling pair with judgmental eyes, scowling at their backtracking and sudden loss of maturity.

Though a part of him was glad, considering Harry had risen above the damage Auron had done to him and was finally letting out all that had been repressed, the breakthrough was achieved by means of something Azazel didn’t stand behind. This third-party Alexander of theirs had caused them too many problems and certainly wasn’t helping now.

Suppose the earlier conversation, had enough times, could hold the trickling power to eventually mend their strife...it had been leaning into something that almost started to sound like a resolution. Well Alexander ruined any chance of that happening. He was the only thing standing in the way of Azazel getting his twins together under one happy roof; for Azazel could work with deeply rooted pain spawned from the chaos of Rome—not a love triangle that had brewed long after that. It was tedious, and far outside the point.

His disapproval aside, he still let his twins duke it out amongst themselves, flinching when blows were landed sharply enough to make the other one shriek in pain. Hadrian was undoubtedly leading this fight in his dominance, consistently striking forward while Auron was alternatively trapped in the defensive end, just barely managing to outstep his brother before he made some kind of vicious contact.

The training Azazel had bestowed unto Auron over the centuries was serving him well in the face of the only immortal child his age that could overpower him, but the difference in strength was just as noticeable as it had ever been, and Hadrian’s parallel progression had kept him in his notorious position of being one step ahead of his poor brother.

It tugged on Azazel’s heart to see Auron so visibly disappointed in himself, the eldest brother close to crying out of frustration that he couldn’t easily secure a victory he’d been hypothetically mulling over for centuries. Both twins were reflective visions of bloodied, hissing messes, and Azazel began to debate how long he would let this drag on without intervention. It was a high possibility that Auron would tire soon, and Hadrian would show no mercy in the end. He would kill him—and Azazel hadn’t admitted it, but he couldn’t deny—he would _never_ let that happen.

Amid his thoughts of this very subject, the time of its occurrence struck upon them like lightning, and Azazel genuinely panicked. Hadrian had gotten Auron in a chokehold that could have broken his neck, but the alarming thing was when he made to behead him with ten claws dug under Auron’s jaws. Hadrian was _so_ close to ending this once and for all, and it was going to happen _now_ —Azazel had less than half a second.

“Stop!” he commanded with his undeniable lure, freezing the brothers and garnering their feral attention. He flew to them and ripped Hadrian’s wrists from Auron’s neck, forcefully tossing the alpha brother a fair distance away and then slitting his own wrist for Auron to suckle on and rapidly recover from his wounds. “This ends now!” he snarled to both of them, holding Auron’s head to his arm while he glared at the offended Hadrian across the coliseum.

“What are you doing?” Harry barked to his maker, always confounded by his contradictory motives that sought to tear him in two. “Let me have him!”

“No! You two are to stay here and wait for my return. Do not move from your spots, am I clear?” he asked, wrestling his wrist out of Auron’s embedded fangs and letting him fall onto the hard ground. “Stay. Here,” he hissed with an overload of lure, seeing his success over their minds when they jolted and lost the fight in their eyes.

He stomped back through the winding passage to the throne room and out into the main hallway, stalking with purpose toward the room wherein Alexander was held, deciding that if Hadrian and Auron couldn't let Alexander go, then he had to do it for them.

 

~~~

 

Louis had ended up trying his best to cut his sunlight metal cuffs with Auron’s dagger, but it hadn't worked, and that was putting it lightly. He'd slashed himself an uncountable amount of times and blood splatters occupied a large section of the floor he'd been sitting on.

After multiple failures and extensive healing periods that dragged on much longer due to the sunlight slowing him down (one of which included him staring at his own wrist bone for nearly thirty minutes before his skin closed again), he'd instead used the knife to try and open the door.

This also hadn't worked. He'd attempted every use for this damn dagger that he could think of, but as handy as it seemed, the weapon did absolutely nothing to help him. He'd detected Auron’s scent earlier, though...so it may see a purpose soon. If he was quick enough.

As he was plotting the best possible way to take Auron by complete surprise, he was rather surprised himself when the mixed scents of Azazel, Auron, and Hadrian combined slipped into his nostrils. He flung himself into a crouched position and sucked in a breath to start screaming, but the closer the scent became, the clearer it was that the twins were not with their maker, it was _just_ their maker.

 _This can't be good,_ he thought to himself, clutching the dagger in his hand that was more useless to him now than it had been to cut metal—there was no way in Hades’ lair he could take Azazel out with a butter knife.

He slunk down in trepidation when the sounds of Azazel’s approach added themselves to the scent, frantically looking around for any feasible weapon he could use as such, but the limits of sunlight chains (that would only hurt himself in the process of wielding), some oil lanterns, stale blood on a cart, and an entire bed didn’t leave him with many options. _Shit._

Azazel was suddenly right outside the door and Louis jumped back, charging forward recklessly when it swung open and the ancient stepped in unannounced. Azazel hissed at his advance and slapped the dagger out of his hand and across the room, grabbing him around the neck and lifting him all the way off the floor while Louis flailed for release.

“I want you gone,” the powerful creature growled in his face, his lengthy fangs dripping with endorphins that Louis couldn't even conceptualize receiving in his bloodstream.

“Good, I don’t want to be here,” Louis choked around a squished throat, kicking his legs and digging his claws into Azazel’s arm. Azazel then set him down roughly and dragged him outside, walking briskly down the hall toward some ambiguous location that Louis had no way of predicting. _This is just not bloody good._

“You’re far more trouble than you’re worth,” the ancient insulted, forcibly hauling Alexander along whenever he tried futilely to root himself to the ground.

“Okay, fine, but I don’t need that from you,” Louis replied sassily, unable to disagree with a statement that had so much truth to it. Still, what the fuck was Azazel’s problem?

Azazel said nothing more and pulled Alexander through the treasure room to that specific tunnel he’d have to kick him down to keep him in line. He threw the old King in front of him and subsequently chased after him, slamming his foot against Alexander’s spine, pelvis, and thighs every few seconds or so while he squeaked in defense.

Louis dealt with the assaults because it was blatantly clear now he was being led to the Aelius twins, and while nothing about it made him believe this was a particularly good thing, it was rather exciting in comparison to his usual dungeon dregs. Two strong hands curled around his waist when the passage began to widen, and then he was being hurled through the exit like a spear and into an echoed and spacious arena, where he landed quite unceremoniously and slid painfully across the stone under his body. “Did you _really_ have to—”

“Louis!” Harry called in outrage of his treatment, his big green eyes locked fearfully onto his lover while the King gave him a sheepish smile.

“Lexy!” Auron breathed in surprise, both him and his twin stumbling to their feet as they broke through Azazel’s former lure to approach Louixander.

“Don’t be stupid,” Louis snarled to the twins, halting their self-explanatory rebellion before Azazel would make them all sorely regret it.

Azazel materialized behind the old King and smacked both hands around his neck, walking him over to the confused twins and planting him just out of their reach. “Forget this face,” he commanded, lowering his own beside Alexander’s so the twins’ line of sight included his eyes.

“Excuse me?” Auron growled in rage, valiantly fighting the trickling compulsion as Harry bared his fangs and hissed his opinion.

“You can’t do that!” Harry protested, again entirely on Auron’s side. Louis had already been fighting his forced position, but with Azazel’s words he was thrashing, sudden sobs breaking both Harry and Auron’s hearts because they were truthfully powerless to stop them. “Let him go, Azazel.”

“Forget me?!” Louis screeched, blindsided by the revealed intention so harshly that he’d honestly rather die. “No. No, please don’t do that,” he cried desperately, his tears tumbling down his cheeks like waterfalls, his heart held in a vice-grip that was going to burst the moment Azazel won this gut-wrenching mental battle with his Roman creations. One of which was Louis’ entire world.

“Forget everything about him,” Azazel repeated sternly, letting Alexander go free because his cooperation was inconsequential, stepping back to focus all of his mind on the twins.  

Louis ran into Harry’s arms with the speed of a bullet and Harry responded in turn, slamming Louis into his chest to guard him from his maker, his entire skull burning with a merciless inferno that felt like a death sentence to fight, but fight it he must. Even Auron grabbed his Louis’ free hand and shuffled slightly in front of them, the brothers’ need to protect their personal bonds to Louixander causing them to work together as a team without a second thought.

“You’re both to forget every detail that pertains to Alexander, and then your childish feud with each other,” Azazel pressed with an authority that he hadn’t conjured in quite a long stretch of time, gradually stirring the inner cauldron of his strongest lure to gently awaken its dormant power before he would bring it all out in one fell swoop.

Louis wailed into Harry’s collarbones, holding onto him like he was trying to smash his ribs, taking in every millisecond that flew by because they felt viscerally like the last ones. He drunk in Harry’s parchment scent and the beautiful sensations of his body pressed against his own, documenting every single detail of these precious moments and locking them away in a safe place within his head—a place he would go to when he needed it most.

“We refuse,” Harry snarled to his maker, digging his claws into Louis’ back as though it would keep them from ever separating. “You can’t make us do that.”

Auron was about to add his two cents, but as the weaker one of Azazel’s intended targets, loud screeching became his response instead as the compulsion grew to an excruciating level of insistent. Nevertheless, he pushed through, desperate and driven to deny the sweet and effortless temptation of giving in. “This was _never_ the deal, Azazel!” he roared in livid anger, his every shred of loyalty, love, and respect for the only Father he’d ever had dissipating in a flash as he realized how very serious he was. This was an egregious betrayal on Azazel’s part—a genocide of trust—and Auron would never forgive him. “You filthy liar! I trusted you!”

“Any last words?” Azazel asked as though Auron hadn’t said a word, breathing deeply as he stepped forward to deliver the finishing blow.

“Harry, look at me,” Louis sobbed, reaching up and tugging his Roman’s face down to him with a hand wound tight in his dark brown curls. Once met with those tormented green irises that he would miss the most, he rose to his tiptoes and crashed his lips against Harry’s with a blazing electricity that sparked volts so powerful it felt as though their skin could singe, a traumatizing measure of jagged emotion flying back and forth between them as they stood wobbling on the ledge of a harrowing loss.

“I’ll come back to you. I promise,” Harry murmured against his lips, fully aware that he was at his breaking point and wouldn’t withstand much longer. He had so much to say and he had to do it all with his eyes, which was an impossible expectation, but by the look in Louis’ mismatched and drowning ones, Harry knew they understood each other anyway. That terrible screenplay of silent communication set them on some inexplicable and mirrored frequency that then sent its vibrations out into the cosmos, and for that one staggering moment, Harry could swear they shared a soul...and they didn’t even have those.

Louis found it in himself to smile, tears incessantly streaking down his face as he held Harry’s cheek with the very hand that would soon be unable to touch him anymore. “I know you will,” he choked, squeezing Auron’s hand to say goodbye to his insufferable self as he sniffed beside them in defeat. “I love you, Hadrianus,” he whispered brokenly, jolting when Azazel grabbed his hips and wrenched him away from his heart and soul.

Harry remembered last time he hadn’t been able to reciprocate that declaration of love, so he scrambled to do so now while he still had time, begging the universe to let him get it across once more before he would lose his chance. “I love—”

“ _FORGET HIM_!” Azazel bellowed as he met both Auron and Hadrian’s eyes, an invisible wave crashing over them so strongly that Louis swore he could feel it too from his crumpled position on the floor. “ _AND YOUR RIVALRY. AS YOUR CREATOR, I COMMAND YOU. NOW!_ ”

“No,” Louis whimpered in agony as that earlier grip on his heart tightened with a pressure he couldn’t handle a single second longer, it and everything it stood for shattering like frosted glass all over pavement.

The twins’ eyes glossed over and they both fell heavily to their knees, their heads bowed and their hands lying upturned on the ground beside their folded thighs. Azazel stepped away with an exhausted sigh of relief, watching in amusement as Alexander crawled along the ground like a slug to fruitlessly plead his identity. For this reason alone, Azazel let him, figuring a test of his permanent lure’s effect had no discernable downside.

“Harry,” Louis rasped, quickening his languid pace across the stone and practically climbing onto his lover’s lap for some sort of recognition. “Harry,” he repeated, lifting his leaden head up to search his hazy eyes for the immortal that belonged to him.  

“Hadrian,” Auron said tiredly, immediately winning Harry’s attention as he pushed Louis off his lap and clutched onto his brother instead, only shredding Louis’ withering heart that much more.

“Auree,” Harry greeted in wonderment, touching his twin’s face with delicate fingertips as he tried to work out why he felt so uncommonly weird.

“Auron,” Louis tried, scooting over to sit before the more nefarious Aelius and hopefully break through some layers of this unheard of compulsion.

“Who are you?” Auron asked blandly, shielding his brother away from the blubbering and perplexing stranger.  

“Don’t you give me that! Not you!” Louis snapped through his whines, gripping the evil twin’s collar and bravely slapping him across the face. “Snap out of this!” he shouted, doubling back when Harry unexpectedly lunged for him.

“You lay another _finger_ on my brother and I’ll tear you apart,” he snarled with bared fangs, hissing a storm at the stranger and offhandedly realizing how attractive he was.

“Harry, stop! Don’t you know who I am?” Louis pleaded in incredulity, reluctantly impressed that Azazel could erase that many centuries at once, but heartbroken all the same—originals were terrifying beasts. This was a nightmare he never could have imagined falling victim to; never before had he feared Hadrian _forgetting_ who he was, and yet it was happening before his very eyes...it was done. “It’s Alexander…” he tried hopelessly, holding his hand over his mouth in horror when neither twin responded to his name.

“Come, Hadrian. Azazel is waiting for us,” Auron said as he snaked an arm around his brother’s hips and helped him to his feet, both twins meeting their maker’s eyes and smiling like happy and adoring sons to their Father.

Louis glanced over too just to see what the twins did, and Azazel’s smirk delivering itself directly at _him_ boiled Louis’ blood—this wasn’t over. “I will reverse this. You mark my fucking words, Azazel. I’m going to fix this,” Louis vowed, his poisonous resentment spewing black dots in his shaking vision as the original vampire stalked forward with a condescending and unperturbed demeanor.

“Do you want to know what it feels like to die without your Romans giving one single fuck about it?” Azazel taunted sickeningly, his dead-serious eyes tearing a hole straight through Louis’ confidence as he shook like leaves in a windstorm.

“Harry!” he shouted over Azazel’s shoulder, meeting the pointedly staring but un _seeing_ eyes of both Aelius twins and finding it preposterous that he wanted even Auron back.

“That’s not my name,” Hadrian noted coldly, entwining his fingers with his brother’s hand and turning to him to nuzzle into his shoulder, truly leaving Louis to die at the hands of his maker without any real knowledge of what he was doing.

“That must hurt,” Azazel laughed, rearing a hand back to rip Alexander’s head right off his shoulders and dispose of him for what he hoped would be a very long time.

 _Fine_ , Louis thought to the ancient vampire who had successfully taken everything from him, getting in his last longing looks of those insane Romans that had forever altered the course of his life, refusing to close his eyes even as the clawed hand of death swung down for his throat because he didn’t want to miss a thing.

Just when he thought everything would go black again, Azazel froze, his offended nostrils flaring as he studied some faraway blip of something Louis didn’t and couldn’t care to ponder. _Just do it..._

Azazel chuckled to himself and promptly moved away from Alexander, still on his knees and waiting for death. He took each of his amnesiac twins under his arms and made a frantic break for it, wholefully unwilling to deal with his American brother, who was evidently flying down the Roman tunnels with a large group of Elders and otherwise behind him. Some other time...but not now.

The whoosh of Azazel’s retreat with Hadrian and Auron attacked the light strands of Louis’ hair, and he appreciated that last gust of his lover’s scent before they were too far away to detect. He couldn’t chase after them; he’d never keep up. He couldn’t fight Azazel; he would get killed in a heartbeat—and he had to fix this. _He had. To fix this._

Louis didn’t know how long he sat like the statue he’d become, perched up on his kneecaps and staring blankly at the spot where Harry’s eyes had been, just like last time from the dungeon, only this was a thousand times worse. He wasn’t coming back—and Louis knew that for sure. He couldn’t even cry at this point; he was just empty. Drained. Haunted by the memory of Harry’s fierce protests, and even Auron’s palpable displeasure to forget him. Those twins both cared about him so much; albeit in very different ways and only one was requited, but the knowledge warmed his non-present soul regardless. Neither brother had wanted this—and neither did he.

A desperate and redundant siren of his name kept trying to reach his mind through his ears, but he let it in and out, his every waking thought dedicated solely to his lost love and what he could do to get him back. Even when the scents of the name-callers were suddenly all so strong and incredibly close by, Louis couldn’t react—he couldn’t even blink.

The grabbing of his shoulders was a little easier to address, but his eyes wouldn’t focus on whoever was shaking him like an etch-a-sketch no matter what he did, still nailed to the spot through their skin that Harry had last stood in...while he’d looked at him like a stranger. Because Louis was now. That’s _all_ he was. A stranger.

Multiple voices and featureless faces endlessly crowded his space, and he began to wish they would stop. Don’t they know now isn’t a good time? The sharp slap across his cheek slightly knocked him off his comatose tracks, but cranking his head back to gaze forward still felt like it took hours.

This time, however, when he finally focused on the obviously female face in front of him, time sped back up at a nauseating rate, and reality was suddenly _real_. The film was off his eyes, the plugs out of his ears. He knew this face. Its shockingly familiar and homesick-inducing lines struck him like an arrow through the stomach, and his jaw dropped open in stunned recognition. Louis really hoped this reality was the real one because he couldn’t take another rejection, but he had to ask the question first. “...Momma?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it makes you feel any better, things are looking up where I am right now in the story. So, I mean, there's that, right?


	9. Deep Breaths in the Santa Maria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are we feeling from The Forget™? I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not nice.

“It's me, baby,” Stacey said with a teary-eyed grin, smoothing Louis’ hair back and prodding at his face in her typical motherly way. “You're okay,” he soothed, aware that by the looks of it, her son was anything but.

“I'm not,” Louis replied tonelessly, confirming her fears and smiling at her concerned frown. He was the furthest from okay he'd been since finding what his death had done to Hadrian’s mental state.

“You can't run forever, Azazel!” an unknown vampire bellowed down the path they'd taken, drawing Louis’ attention to him because he smelled eerily similar to the immortal he was courageously threatening. “We'll find you!”

Louis stared hard at the immortal that had shouted, his tan skin and long black hair pegging him as having a Native American descent, but he just couldn’t bring himself to ask who he was, too numb from the atrocity that Azazel had committed to his twins. And when he includes both of the twins, don’t get him wrong; he hates Auron with the passion of a thousand suns, but he’d take him back any day over never garnering his relentless attention again. And where Hadrian was concerned...well that was why he _had_ to do something. He could deal with Auron never remembering who he was. Hadrian—his purest, _deepest_ love—he could not.

“Where’s Harry?” Harlock stepped up to ask the dazed Louis, his brows furrowing when Louis simply stared in return, one heavy tear sliding down his left cheek.

_That's not his name._

“Louis?” Martin begged as he slid into view behind Stacey and Harlock, a haggard Tanner leaned heavily against his back, both of them looking like they'd just crawled out of a garbage disposal. “Where is he?” he whimpered, time standing still as Louis visibly attempted to formulate a response.

“He’s not coming...is he…” Harlock guessed, getting all the answers he needed when Louis’ tears ran faster.

“What happened to him?” Martin choked in horror, struggling to hold both Tanner and himself upright under the suddenly crushing weight of gravity.

“Later. We should go,” Harlock said, shoving his personal emotions regarding Harry down into the pit of his stomach because they had two humans and three beaten-down immortals to take care of. “Johnny and Jenner can't stay here,” he reminded, twisting side to side as he bounced the exhausted and oxygen-deprived Jenner in his arms.

“I agree, we can talk later,” Liam said as Niall walked up and gently kissed Louis on the forehead to say the things he couldn’t even touch with words.

“Max, get those...those things off Louis’ wrists,” Jenner mumbled into Harlock’s chest, aimlessly pointing in the direction of Louis as he said it.

“This warlock crap,” Max muttered in scorn, approaching the oddest Mother-son duo he’d ever seen and snatching his forearm to effortlessly break the bind off and then quickly remove the other one.

Louis sighed in relief but it was short-lived, the loss of his binds only taking him one step out of this catastrophe...one step further away from Hadrian. When he wobbled on his balance, the vampire who was evidently Max reached out and caught him, lifting him away from his Mother and cradling him in his own arms.

“I’ve got him,” Max said to his daughter, who gave nothing more than a nod and a comforting squeeze to Louis’ deadweight hand that hung down as though every nerve within it had frozen.

“Can you get us out of here?” Jet asked their original guide, a simple hand held around the nape of Stacey’s neck because coddles would not meet any appreciation—she knew what Stacey would or wouldn't encourage. This was no time to assure her that everything was or was going to be “fine.”

“Sure. There’re no paths through here, though, so we have to turn around,” Max said, a few confident sniffs of the large expanse convincing him that each chamber was too lengthy a stretch for the humans among them to handle.  

“Lead the way,” Harlock ordered with the utmost use of cordiality, pleading Max to pick his battles and smack him for it later.

“Very well,” Max quipped, sidestepping his way through the parting group to sweep down the narrow way they had come and find an alternative route from the treasure-filled room. The Elder King was light but rigid in his arms, as though he could crack if dropped, and Max felt an uncommon amount of empathy for him. It wasn’t often that he felt another’s pain, especially the generally immature and fleeting pain of his species’ children, but he knew Azazel well—Azazel could get to anyone.

He walked briskly down the hall alit by lanterns spaced widely enough to keep the tunnels in a dim glow and took deep inhales of every path he came across, trying to judge if one would lead anywhere substantial. He didn’t find many promising options, so he kept the silent group moving, turning on his highest level of sensory perception to suss out their route. He’d never been in these tunnels before, so by default, wasn’t too familiar with their layout.

“Why aren’t there Losts here?” Erakus inquired, his longtime companion Tanner lying limply in his arms while Marley carried Martin behind him. “Shouldn’t we be expecting them?” he asked, referencing the fact that their eastbound travels to the southeast corner of England, and their sprints underneath what was likely France and Switzerland, had been the only two times those disgusting things had been everywhere. The only times the Lost hadn’t been present was under the Atlantic in the lowest tunnels, and when they’d neared the city of Rome, and he didn’t understand it. Where were they?

“Dwellers wouldn’t come here,” Max chuckled, making another hard right and lamenting the lack of those telltale scuttles of his cute little dwellers he loved so much. The fact that Azazel had resided here (with a large group of children no less) for what was apparently a long time meant no dweller would have dared flock to this area. Dwellers were thoughtless but yet they weren’t stupid—they knew their place in the world.

Louis was aching to know what the terms “dwellers” and “Lost” alluded to, because it certainly didn’t sound friendly, but he still couldn’t care enough to speak out, hiding in the warm comfort of the vampire who reminded him so very much of Azazel and yet bestowed upon him the polar opposite effect of that foreboding presence. Like the other side of a coin—like Hadrian and Auron.

“So we’re safe?” Erakus pressed, trying to walk on his tiptoes to see Max over the heads of Harlock and Liam, who had taken position directly behind Max because they had fragile humans who needed any air they could find first.

“Relatively…” Max responded, leaning all his weight down a left-hand tunnel because it seemed to be their best bet by its scent. He made it halfway down before another intersection would make him pause, just barely passing an old door on the left side when Alexander suddenly flicked on from his setting of dormant and thrashed in his arms like he’d been struck by lightning.

“Put me down,” Louis blurted, tumbling down to the ground while Max held him steady with a strong grip around his upper arm.   

All of the vampires could tell that Louis’ scent was overpowering from within whatever room he was trying to get to, but Harlock still asked. “What are you doing?” he inquired, watching as Louis wiggled out of Max’s grasp and slammed the heavy door open to disappear inside without a word. _Something important_ , he answered to himself, stepping back to give Stacey the room to rush in after her son. Max immediately followed to offer his assistance and Jet expectedly trailed in after her lover, leaving the rest of the group to wait in the hall for their return.

Stacey sobbed to see so much of her son’s blood caked onto the floor and chain-decorated walls, but Louis ignored her, frantically searching for Auron’s dagger because for some reason, he was desperate to have it—even if what it stood for haunted his every fibre. He wouldn’t leave here without a consolation prize like that.

He ultimately won the peripheral sight of its glint in the corner of the room at the foot of the bed, and he dashed uncoordinatedly to retrieve it, turning it over in his hand when he was successful and laughing once through his nostrils before shoving it in his back pocket. “I needed that,” he explained with a ghastly croak, shuffling back to Max and jumping up in his arms, able to walk but choosing not to. Max didn’t stop him, so that was that.

“You’re a cute one,” Max cooed, smiling when Alexander seemed to shut off again and stared unseeingly at his hands stacked on his stomach. The Greek certainly had some things to work out in his head before Max could have any measure of complex conversation about the otherworld with him.

“What happened to you in there?” Martin asked when Max returned with Louis in his arms (followed closely by an upset Stacey and a consoling Jet), the slight vision of the room he had as they resumed their journey sending him straight back to Harry’s, where his worst nightmares had come true time and time again. He swung his arm back to clutch Tanner’s hand—assure himself that he was still real—and Tanner responded in kind, the two quickly getting lost in their recent memories of hell.

 _Everything...nothing…_ Louis responded in his head, cursing himself for being so vegetative but he just...he just couldn’t. Martin seemed to understand and he let it drop, but the tone of his voice got Louis thinking. Had Martin and Tanner _been here_? They smelled like it, they looked like it, and they acted like it. Had Louis failed to realize they’d been here the whole time? Had they seen much of Harry? He had so many questions, and he couldn’t even get a single one through his lips. _Zeus...help._

Thankfully no more questions came so Louis let himself zone out, using an excessive amount of brain power to force his mind inside the boundaries of what he was willing to think about. Thinking about not thinking about things was a sodding challenge but he made it work, desperate to escape reality and lose himself in the void. Tragedy had struck upon him in ways that were impossible to process, but he supposed it was just a sign of the times. _Do better. This isn't nearly terrible enough,_ he goaded to the merciless universe, getting gravely serious about his zone and tuning everything out for real.

Max ran down the hall and Louis pointedly looked behind them to stare at his comforting friends who had saved him (ten minutes late), tired as fuck of staring into the unknown. They all made sharp turn after sharp turn, but Louis turned his bones to jelly, riding the wave and fiddling with Max’s soft and lush hair.

He didn't know where the confidence was coming from, but Max was an overwhelmingly soothing presence to have, and was quickly becoming essential to his sanity. His gentle thumb rubs under Louis’ thigh and shoulder blade felt like heaven, and sometimes when he would look down and smile at him, giving him a grand view of those onyx black eyes, Louis would forget where he was. It was amazing.

The sudden, unmistakable scent of Auron almost made Louis choke, and he knew right away Auron wasn’t actually nearby, but the familiar aroma was like a slap in the face. His eyes instantly zoomed in on a door near the end of the passage, and he gathered they were approaching what used to be Auron’s bedroom of sorts—at least somewhere he'd spent a lot of time in or his scent wouldn’t be this strong.

“Harlock. Harlock. Harlock,” Jenner rasped breathlessly in rapid succession, his eyes glued to the door as he tried to smack at his vampire’s chest.

Max halted and turned around with the catatonic Alexander and regarded the warlock with a knowing glance. “You feel it?” he asked pleasantly as everyone else slid to a frantic stop, always enamoured by magical humans and the kind of things they could feel that his own children were laughably blind to.

“Hmph!” Louis grunted nonsensically, wondering if the timing of Jenner’s rambling had anything to do with the blast of Auron he’d gotten mere seconds prior. It was suspicious to say the least...and now they'd stopped at the door.  

“That,” Jenner said as he inclined his cannula-decorated nose toward the very door Louis had confirmed was the one to Auron’s room, and his fervent curiosity of its interior boiled over the lid of Louis’ patience. What did Jenner, the warlock, feel coming from that room? All Louis felt was a bittersweet and troubling nostalgia...this was obviously something very else.

“In there,” Jenner repeated vaguely, making Harlock huff in frustration because he couldn’t deny his lover of what he wanted, but the lack of explanation was grating. He smelled Auron too…and he’d only ever come in contact with that particular scent once, but he knew it without a doubt—Hadrian’s was eerily close.

Louis pointed toward the room too and Max chuckled, adhering to the unworded request and striding over within the most wide of halls they'd seen yet to reach the door. Louis listened as Max voiced for free hands to open it for them, and then Stacey was there in a flash, opening the door like a concierge and letting Harlock and Max step in with Jenner and Louis respectively.

Louis was surprised to discover the quaint air in which Auron lived his hateful existence, staring at his artful paintings that he’d clearly spent hours on with a wistful smile, surprising himself with how warmly he was regarding one of his worst enemies. To miss that selfish, arrogant asshole…

When Auron had lived at Hadrian and Alexander’s home with them, he could mostly be found in the upper level rooms, attacking canvas after canvas with art that had always been ahead of its time—the kind of abstract shit that you’d find in a modern art museum. He’d dabbled in portraits and still-life as well, but his specialty was taking the egg tempera pigment of the olden days in pallets of red and yellow ochre, umber, lime white and others in his hands, and hurling it onto the hemp canvases so hard that the easels would topple over helplessly.  

Hadrian would hear the roars of his artistic brother at work and sprint up the stairs with Alexander in tow because he had no other choice, and dress down to either mere bottoms, or nothing at all, then hold his arms out at his sides to volunteer as a canvas. Paint fights you wouldn’t believe would inevitably ensue amongst the three of them, and Louis would do anything to have Hadrian’s willing frame stood before him once more to chuck paint at, but none of this was why they were here. He was getting absurdly sidetracked.

“Under the bed,” Jenner rasped with a downcast gaze, dragging Louis’ attention back onto him and then straight to the bed mentioned.

Stacey pointed under the bed to verify that was what Jenner had said, and the warlock nodded passionately, Louis’ Mother flying onto her stomach and scooting her top half under the rickety bed frame to investigate. “There’s a book down here,” she stated, Jenner slightly convulsing in Harlock’s arms to hear it because apparently he understood what that meant.

“Pull it out,” Max said giddily, extremely curious as to what kind of ancient magic was drowning this mysterious book for its power was palpable.

“That’s an obvious one,” Stacey grunted in response, her hand slapping down on the thick, antique and weathered book that weighed at least ten pounds and had a dusty binding that held its vellum pages together by a thread. She slid it as gently as she could manage across the stone floor and wedged her way back out with the delicate book in hand.

“Give it to me,” Jenner growled in an uncharacteristic display of aggression, making even the spacey Louis regard him with wariness.

Stacey narrowed her eyes until Max snapped at her to obey the warlock, then she walked forward and deposited the cracked book straight onto Jenner’s chest, making short eye contact with Harlock to judge how he felt about it—he didn’t look too sure.

The second Jenner had the book against his bosom, his hair whipped around his face like a private tornado was spinning around his head, and his skin tingled while he momentarily glowed an incandescent golden hue. He groaned from the overwhelming pressure of the magical contact and curled up like a pill bug in Harlock’s arms, smushing the book against his chest and letting its nefarious energy flow into him.

“What have we got there, little warlock?” Max cooed, rocking back and forth on his tiptoes as he waggled his eyebrows like a prat.

“Spells. Old. Old spells,” Jenner sputtered, resisting the all-encompassing urge to open the book because he didn’t fancy getting taken over at the moment.

Louis hardly registered the rapid thought process he underwent, but it all hit him at once that he had an object of sentimental significance, his blood, the book that dream spell had likely come from, and a warlock. “Jenner!” he gasped, the warlock’s wild eyes flying to his own rabid ones as they spoke some secret language of panic between their expressions. “I’ll tell you later…” he backtracked, realizing he couldn’t talk about that right now if he tried.

“Liam,” Johnny wheezed, his oxygen running on a lower flow than it had since their initial descent.

“We need to get to the surface _now_ ,” Liam pressed to Max in a sweep of panic, all heads turning to the original as he nodded in understanding. “How fast can we get there?” he asked, worried eyes flying between Johnny’s heavy ones and Max’s pensive face.

“Well I’m not sure. I can find it, yeah, but _now_? I don’t know these tunnels, so give me some time—Cináed made these, not me,” he informed, walking back out of the room and taking a good look around while he sniffed out the different chambers that dotted the walls.

“Cináed,” Louis repeated in wonderment, the mental vision of his maker suddenly blasting behind his eyelids every time he blinked. That’s a name he hadn’t heard in well over two thousand years. _Cináed._ Somehow he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was _that_ Cináed.

Max glanced down at Alexander and gave him a loaded wink, furthering his hopeless confusion for the fun of it. He obviously recognized the name of his maker, and was likely reliving an excess of lost memories with each passing second, but surely couldn’t connect what Cináed had to do with the vampire currently carrying him.

“You led us here easily enough,” Liam added reasonably, recalling how many turns and twists they’d made once getting into these upper level tunnels. Max had gotten them out of that stretch of volcanic rock below the ocean and brought Jenner and Johnny back into consciousness as they made their way to Rome, and the moment he’d taken a good long sniff of their new Italian area, he’d dashed off in a confident direction as fast as possible while the rest of them scrambled to keep up, following some faint scent none of them could detect but trusted wholeheartedly. Lo and behold, he’d been right.

“Azazel is an easy scent to follow. He’s my brother. The surface is different,” Max explained chidingly, annoyed that he had to defend himself to yet another child of Cináed. “Let’s go,” he said, taking off into the abyss of the tunnels to prove he could find his way out of here faster than any of them could ever dare to dream.

 _His brother...his brother...Azazel’s brother...this vampire is Azazel’s brother…?_ Louis was a bit shell-shocked to hear this news, but no part of him doubted its validity—if there could be a vampire on this Earth that rivaled the raw and Olympian aura of Azazel, it was Max. Not a fitting name in Louis’ opinion, but his supremacy rang clear; and the more he thought of it, so did Cináed’s. _Let me guess, they're brothers too._

 

\---

 

After a period of time that Louis had barely noticed passing, he was suddenly ascending a staircase with his relieved group in tow. Liam and Harlock were running alongside Max at an impressive speed, and their humans had finally been able to take the deep breaths they'd been vying for.

Louis thought back to his time in the tunnels and tried to remember if he'd had trouble breathing when alive. He honestly couldn't remember—maybe the air had been a _little_ stuffy, but vampire lungs were vastly superior to a human’s, so not noticing the severely low level of oxygen didn't much surprise him.

The staircase seemed to drag on endlessly, considering Max was running at full speed (and had been for a while) and they still weren't off of it. _Was I really this far down?_ he wondered, the familiar smell of Rome getting stronger the higher they climbed. _Did it have to be Rome?_

He kept his arms crossed tightly over his chest and curled into Max, closing his eyes and trying uselessly to imagine he was in Hadrian’s arms instead. In no universe would such a mental tactic ever work, but that didn't stop him from trying. He'd lost Harry. His Harry. Louis had _lost him._ And if finding him meant fabricating every single detail of reality to represent him, then so be it.

Louis felt himself rise above the surface as the scents of Roman humans who called themselves Italian could now be detected from all around them, but he kept his eyes closed anyway. He could tell they'd come up into an old building and were now jogging up its own stairs that spiraled within a narrow tower, he knew it was nighttime, and he knew he'd have to talk about Hadrian soon. This was the maximum extent of his knowledge.

“Who would have thought the entrance to the Roman tunnels would be in a place like this?” Harlock asked quietly and clearly rhetorically, likely speaking to Liam right beside him which was proven when the English-grown vampire hummed in agreement.

“What's the word for this?” Max asked in frustration, sounding like he'd been looking for the word the moment they'd arrived and hadn't been able to find it.

“Cathedral?” Liam replied, unsure which one it was specifically by name.

“Ca _thedral_ , that's right,” Max grumbled, evidently kicking a door open and stepping across the noisiest floorboards Louis had ever heard, up one more curved staircase, and then coming to a stop near the assumed top of the cathedral, where he then set Alexander down on his feet and walked to the stone archway that looked out over the town. “Interesting…”

“There are humans on the streets” Erakus gaped, peering out with Marley on the opposite side of the enclosure to the rione below and studying the sluggish humans in confusion.

“What!” Harlock gasped, setting Jenner and his book down to approach the lookout with his vampires. Humans indeed walked along the night-coated streets as though nothing was amiss in the world, but their movement was a little _too_ complacent. Too easygoing. “There’s a widespread lure going on here...multiple, actually,” he informed, working to pinpoint the locations of the radar lures so they knew where the predators were stationed.

“So why isn’t Johnny affected?” Niall asked from under Zayn’s arm, the pair of them looking over to the human in Liam’s care that had finally been able to lose the oxygen tank.

“Shit! He is!” Liam snapped in disdain the moment he looked down at his lover, dropping to his knees and staring into Johnny’s hazy eyes to break it. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before, but Johnny was obviously stuck in a stupor. “Damnit, Johnny. Oi! Snap out of it,” he commanded with his own lure, Johnny’s glazed irises blinking rapidly as he stared up at Liam in confusion.

“Liam,” the human slurred, feeling at his own face as though it had been numbed.

“Jenner?” Harlock called, tiptoeing over to his lover sat up against a pillar with the book in his protective lap.

“I’m fighting it,” Jenner replied adamantly, waving Harlock’s concern away and going back to his inner turmoil regarding the ancient magic pressed up against his skin.

“How did the world undergo such a vast change in the span of us moving from England to Italy?” Marley asked reasonably, opening the floor for a response from anyone.

“I don’t understand this at all,” William added, glaring to the floor as he mulled over why the humans of cities would be more or less _gone_ and then everywhere again so soon. “What’s the point?” he huffed, Veronica pursing her lips and shrugging when he met her eyes, like _she_ would have an answer to his riddle.

“Louis, where are we?” Zayn asked, stepping aside as Louis trudged over to the opening and scoped the area with his equally curious eyes.

“This is Trastevere,” Louis realized with an admiring gawk, his lips forming an impressed frown as he leaned out to study what little of the cathedral he could. “We’re in the Santa Maria,” he stated, ducking back into the bell tower and turning his eyes up to catch the giant saucers that displayed the bottom of the bells, their rusted clappers hanging down their middles, seeming to wait silently for their ringer to pull the ropes in the corner and let them sway like the blaring gongs they were.

“Louis!” Martin exploded from the floor where Tanner was curled into the gap between his legs, his sudden burst of the name alluding he’d held it back for an unbearable length of time that had ultimately caused his reticence to snap.

“Yeah…” Louis sighed, having a pretty good idea as to what this would pertain, considering Martin saw Harry as his personal God and was by default the only other one here to feel such a damaging effect of his loss.

“What happened?” he begged, uncaring of any and every detail of the outside world when their private one was in shambles.

“What happened to _you_?” Louis deflected, taking the time to really study the tattered frames of Martin and Tanner, their blood still smudged onto their skin and their hair looking like two bird’s nests atop their heads. And the eyes...the empty eyes he’d come to see with himself.  

“Did you not know we were there the whole time?” Tanner croaked, coughing through a gathering of tickling scratches in his throat.

“You _were_ there,” Louis breathed to confirm his previous musings, taking a seat near the pair and staring into his lap as he considered whether or not he'd truly known that. “I’d thought I smelled you on Auron, but I wasn’t ever sure of that. I was a bit distracted…”

“No, yeah, we were there the whole time. We were in Harry’s room with him a lot of that time, and a lot of terrible shit happened to us, but nevermind that. Now where _is he_? Why wasn’t he there at the end?” Martin demanded, Tanner’s subtle pinch on his thigh going disregarded because he didn’t care if the question made Louis uncomfortable—this was bigger than him.

“He’s not Harry anymore,” Louis stated firmly, refusing to listen to or speak of that name again until he got him back. “Never call him that again,” he urged to make his position clear, sighing at the lost expressions of everyone around. “He's not ever coming unless we can _get_ him back and reverse what happened to him,” he sniffed to be frank, able to admit he was still being far too cryptic.

“What does that _mean_ for fuck’s sake?!” Martin snarled, Tanner being the only force in the world that had the power to stop him from lunging over to the King and knocking some sense into him. Those words made him fear the worst but he hadn’t a clue of what direction to even take his imagination, and he was desperate to know.

“I can't—” Louis stuttered, gripping his hair and shaking his head to protest getting into this.

“Tell me! Now!” Martin demanded despite Louis’ emotions, hissing at him to drive his need home.

“Azazel, he—he trapped both of them in a lure to make them forget...forget everything,” Louis sobbed, his carefully managed emotions tumbling down the mountain peak they’d been perched atop and gaining a frightening amount of speed on their way down. “Hadrian...doesn’t...remember us. Me. You. No one. And his feud with Auron. Neither of them. Knew. Who I was. And I was right in front of them,” he explained choppily through his chattering teeth, his world boiling down to a pinpoint halfway between the lines of sanity and madness.

Martin guided Tanner out of his legs crawled them both over to their hyperventilating King, the pair throwing their arms around the trembling Louis and allowing him to expel the wracking passion from his heaving lungs. “I'm sorry, Louis. I'm sorry,” Martin lamented, feeling like shit for causing so much distress, but he’d needed to know.

Louis cried and screeched into them for all he was worth, rocking back and forth and making them lose balance several times as they struggled to keep him upright. Martin knew not to question it further for now, and even that little piece of information told him a lot—Harry had forgotten the majority of the centuries he’d lived, and a new complacency had taken him over to mask the issues he had with his brother. _Harry and Auron stuck in compulsory brotherly love…well this is a dangerous combination._

“Baby,” Stacey cooed as she scuttled over to Louis and took up the rear, being the much needed backbone for her son and encouraging him to physically depend on her. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry,” she said on a loop to comfort her distraught child, unable to imagine his pain at not only losing his love, but losing it right in front of him. It was beyond her worst nightmares, and the effects it’d had on her beautiful Louis were utterly heartbreaking to watch.

“I lost him!” Louis wailed, so far outside the lines of control that he feared he may never come back. The panic was cataclysmic and now impossible to reel back in where it could be broken apart piece by piece—it felt like everything bad in this world and more. It felt like a tsunami wave hellbent on taking him out, brought on by non-stop blasts of quaking destruction near some marine coast in his head. It felt like the pyroclastic flow of Vesuvius, and he was Pompeii. It felt like everything and it was all at once.

“We’ll get him back,” Martin assured without being quite sure himself. Regardless of his private doubts they could find Azazel and the twins before long-lasting damage could be inflicted (upon any party), convincing Louis they could anyway was paramount to their capable progress.

“Max, you have to find Azazel. You _have_ to! I’m begging you to help me, please,” Louis growled as he forcefully shoved everyone that crowded him aside, rushing to the original vampire only to be stopped by a modestly held up hand.

“Alright, Alexander. Time to talk,” Max accepted, picking the restless and snotting Alexander up and roughly dropping him down on his arse to send a jolt through his over-energized body. When that only worked a little bit, he released a put-upon sigh of defeat and chased after him to the floor, sinking his fangs deep into his neck and piercing through that top layer of flustered commotion.

Louis gasped in a choked breath and grabbed onto Max like a koala bear, inviting his endorphins to course through his body and hopefully satiate some of his eruption. They were deadly enjoyable endorphins at that, topping Hadrian and Auron’s combined, and he felt no guilt in such a claim—it sounded bad, but anything that surpassed the twins had his full support at the moment. Anything to knock them a tiny ways down from their summit of mass, colossal importance. The feeding that distracted him was over far too soon for his liking, and suddenly he was staring into his black orbs for eyes instead of the once-black-now-orangey brown cathedral bells.  

“I want to know everything you can tell me about the otherworld,” Max said abruptly, clearly jarring Alexander’s muddled brain if going by the momentarily stunned clench of his entire body.

 _Why the fuck does that matter?_ Louis wondered, the unprecedented subject change leading him further away from his tumult as his bleeding neck sent waves of soothing pleasure down his aching bones.

“Give him a moment,” Stacey scolded vehemently, her little feet scampering across the floor to reach her son and place her hands over his ears as though that would somehow affect his hearing.

Louis kept his head down and gathered the strength to confront the question asked of him, mentally thanking his Mother for being the fiercely protective vampire she’d become.

“Stacey, just because you're my daughter does not mean I won't hurt you,” Max growled impatiently, challenging her with a vicious glare. “I _hate_ being above the surface. This is uncomfortable and I'd very much like to leave—”

“Wait,” Louis interrupted, removing his Mother's hands from his head and glancing between her and Max in disbelief. “What did you just…”

“Hadrian, Auron, and those two are children of Azazel,” Max said, the unnamed vampires mentioned being Martin and Tanner. “You, him, him, her, and him are of who? I know you know,” he baited to Louis, the others he'd pointed to being Liam, Harlock, Lauren, and Lawrence.

“Cináed,” Louis said without hesitation, eliciting a slow nod from Max in confirmation. Louis hadn't known jack shit about the others, but if they truly shared the same genetics, then Cináed was undeniably the connection—he was positive about himself. _Well I can cross original vampires off the list of doubts...what's next?_

“Jet and Stacey are mine, just not directly like you are to Cináed...at least from your first life,” Max informed to further Alexander’s understanding, the young Elder visibly chewing on the knowledge. “You have the blood of Azazel as well, and that's particularly rare, but I hear you're a rare being. A special one. Which is why I had to meet you,” he lilted, leaping back over and sitting down directly in front of Alexander to steal his recognition. “Now talk to me.”

“What do I say?” Louis asked dumbly, lost in transmission over where he could begin with Max’s desire for knowledge.

“None of you are meant to remember the world outside of this one. The fact that you do challenges everything I've come to accept, and I'd like to know _how_ ,” Max said simply, pelting him with a gaze that could be construed as sultry but it was just an intrigued hunger for explanation.

“I didn't remember the otherworld for the lives I lived between my first and this one,” Louis began, retracing those ethereal steps to map out his incredible story. “It was only when I went back.”

“Yes, that's how it's _supposed_ to work…” Max emphasized, his brow cinching in consideration, “...and yet, here you sit in this world able to speak of this.”

“Well...I found Hadrian again and started to regain some amount of memories. I don't believe I understood it at the time...I know I didn't...but my past was coming back to haunt me daily in the form of a mental voice I didn't comprehend, and it wasn't long until I began to suspect what it meant,” he confessed, smiling sadly as he relived the easy days of being an innocent detective; not a grieving lover—a victim of loss. _I get it, Hadrian. A little. How it was for you..._

“That it was yourself,” Max said for him, scratching at his chin in thought when Alexander nodded. “When did you know everything?”

“What? Oh yeah…when Hadrian turned me again. Giving me my old blood back, and his, mixed with Cináed and Azazel’s, I guess,” he said, amazed the name Cináed had come back to him after all this time, and that he was proven to be the original Louis had only suspected him of fairly recently.

“This has _never_ been done,” Max stated, his black eyes squinting and widening the longer he stared at the recollected and soulless child before him.

“Neither was conquering the Persian Empire, but I did that too,” Louis said bluntly, growing a little tired of this conversation because it did nothing to help them in the long run.

“Describe the otherworld to me,” Max said without a hint of the order being optional, entwining his fingers and leaning his chin down on the pedestal they made.

 _This high-maintenance motherfucker._ Louis dove into the description without missing a beat, thinking that if he hurried this talk up, it would then morph into one of the future, and not the past. He touched on every detail he could recall, beginning with his first encounter, his arduous attempts to return to this world, his successes, and how different and more intricate the other one had looked every time he’d landed back in it.

Max had smirked, chuckled, and hummed his way through Louis’ spoken memories, and the old King could hear gasps from behind him as well—made by the vampires he'd never told any of this to. Which was all of them.

“I believe you,” Max said after a weighted silence following Alexander’s last vaguely made description. The otherworld was a hard place to put into words, and Alexander had done more than enough to prove he knew what he was talking about.

“Didn’t know you doubted me,” Louis said courageously, his former outside snark peeking through the cracks of his deeply set depression.

“You’re one of a kind, Alexander,” the original praised, looking forward to retreating now that he’d gotten his long-awaited conversation with the enlightened traveler of the two worlds that held a vast majority of all known creation.

“Will you fight Azazel?” Louis asked dejectedly, somehow predicting that Max would refuse the request without a second thought.

“No. I would never take on my older brother,” Max snorted, rolling his eyes at the resounding groan of everyone around and the hopeless slump of their shoulders. “By _myself_ ,” he rectified, laughing at his company’s heads that perked up just as he’d figured they would. “I wouldn’t be able to. With my like-minded siblings at my side, though, I may be more willing. All of us would.”

“How many siblings is that?” Louis inquired, especially interested in hearing more about the previously unproven status of originals. Were they all one family? Where did they come from?

“Not including Azazel, I have eight,” Max said, nodding his head at Alexander’s tangible thought train so he wouldn’t have to explain it later. “There are ten of us on this planet, yes.”

“Who’s your Mother?” Louis asked before anything else, accepting the fact at face-value and only questioning the backstory.

“I can’t talk about that,” Max shrugged impassively, refusing to utter a single sentence about his creator to anyone in this world—they wouldn’t understand it, anyway.

“But where did you come from?” Louis huffed, angered to learn how clueless he’d been to the background workings of the world he’d been a part of for such a long time.

“I can’t tell you that either,” Max said unapologetically, his face devoid of sympathy.

“Where are your siblings?” Louis asked instead, going down the list of his rapid-fire inquisition to gather every piece of information Max had to give.

“I don’t know,” Max laughed, amused by the instant exasperation he saw on multiple faces.

“What _do_ you know?” Louis challenged angrily, so far not seeing the benefit of having one of the siblings around if he was committed to being as unhelpful as possible.

“I know that without me, you wouldn’t even _be_ here,” Max snapped, shooing Stacey away effortlessly when she made a single twitch to approach them.

Louis looked away from those narrowed eyes in respect, bowing his head to show he’d spoken without thinking. Yes, Max had admittedly saved him, because had he not shown up, Azazel probably would have killed him...but even so… “Do I even want to be here?” he asked himself, debating the pros and cons of surviving Azazel’s almost-attempted murder.

“Please,” Max scoffed tiredly, backhanding Alexander across the face and digging down into his heart to win his understanding. “Dying wouldn’t save you from this. With your experience in the otherworld, do you really think that you wouldn’t be haunted by what Azazel has done to your Romans? You’d be even more powerless from there. And you’d have to start over. With no memories,” he reasoned, successfully getting through to Alexander as he comprehended just how stuck he’d be from that world. He could _not_ die.

“Fine. Will you help us find your siblings?” Louis proposed, keeping things relatively simple and straightforward with this extraordinary complex creature in their presence. Seemed the way to go.

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?” Louis groaned, standing to his feet and watching as Max copied the action and grew steadily taller than him until he was looking all the way up to maintain eye contact. “To save the world?” he reasoned incredulously, crossing his arms and holding his position so he wouldn't cower.

“The world isn't going anywhere,” Max shot down, marking the starting point of a fast-paced grapple for mutual bases.

“To save the fate of humans?”

“All humans end up in the same place, you already know this.”

“To restore balance…”

“Predator and prey _is_ a balance.”

“To win yourself personal glory.”

“Glory is superficial and not something my kind chases.”

“To get back at Azazel for all the shit he's put you through.”

“How would you know of what Azazel has put me through?”

 _A break in the line!_ “I don't, but clearly you do,” Louis smirked, proud he'd hit a nerve in the impassable being before him.

“Oh my...I accept,” Max said with a personable smile, finding he did somewhat care what happened to this group of idiots. He wouldn't ever voice that, though.

“So what happens now?” Louis asked, moving right along with the logistics because the journey here had served as enough of a break.

“We find Cináed,” Max replied, an outside voice filtering in from somewhere within the group.

“Our humans need sleep,” Liam interjected sternly, his hand rubbing up and down Johnny’s arm. “And not just shut-eye while we run—actual sleep. Us vampires need it too; we can’t keep going at this pace.”

“I object—”

“Now, now, Alexander,” Max chided with a chuckle, patting the old King’s head and removing his hand before he could slap it away. “That’s no way to treat your group of loyal comrades. A break may be in order,” he reasoned, winning the respect of everyone who had still been wary of him.

“Fine. One day,” Louis relented with an immediate compromise, reluctant to even accept but he didn’t want to be the heartless dictator here—he just wanted to be held by Hadrian again.

“So we wait here and then go to that one place for Cináed,” Max announced, a puzzled look on his face as he tried to conjure the official name for said ‘one place.’

“What place is that?” Zayn asked to shine light on Max’s apparent confusion, clearly pissing him off because the glare he received was one he felt in his bones.

“I'm thinking! It’s uh...it’s... _where are the ones that talk like this_?” Max asked in an expertly done and blatantly clear Scottish accent, glancing around at the stunned group for an answer.

“Scotland,” Harlock quipped surely, smiling imperceptibly when Max snapped his fingers in grateful confirmation.

“That’s the one. We’ll take the tunnels to Scotland—”

“No!” Jenner suddenly barked, turning heads to observe him passionately shaking his head and biting his lip in fear. “I’m not going back there. I’m not—I can’t do that. Louis is safe, I can’t...I can’t go back. Too much magic. I’m at my limit, I can't take any more. I won’t be able to—”

“Okay. Okay, baby,” Harlock cooed, lowering himself to the ground to sit beside Jenner and pull him into his arms.

“Outdone yourself?” Max laughed, truthfully ignorant to how the warlock felt because he wasn’t a magical creature himself. He could only feel small portions of what someone like Jenner would.

“It is a bit too much to ask of the humans,” Harlock defended, covered by a blanket of guilt for everything the vampires had put them through so far. “The Lost immortals, the dark magic, the lack of air...they don’t deserve that,” he said, keeping Jenner’s panic attacks out of the discussion so it wouldn’t seem like he was being too biased—but that was a large reason as well.

 _There's that Lost word again._ “Can you go to Scotland yourself?” Louis asked the original, hoping his assistance would still be on the table whether or not they came along.

“No. I’m not facing Cináed myself either. You need to go to him,” Max said to his brother’s old creation, wondering what kind of difference it would make that Alexander wasn’t the same as he used to be. Surely Cináed would recognize himself inside him, but he’d detect Azazel first...would he give Alexander enough time to explain?

“How sure are you that Cináed is in Scotland?” Louis asked pointedly, looking around at his seated friends and praying to Zeus that they wouldn’t lose any of their numbers if they had to travel to Scotland by themselves.

“I’m not.”

“You—” Louis began to shout, corralling his impulsive anger down into his gut before he would regret it. “Okay. Can you at least go to Scotland and just confirm he’s there? Then come back and tell us before we embark on a wild goose chase?” he corrected, subtly crossing his fingers that the alternative option would be taken.

“You want me...to run to Scotland...just to see if my brother is still there...then come _all the way back_...and alert you of that potential accuracy?” Max repeated dubiously, astounded that such tedious tasks were being presumptuously asked of him. “When there’s absolutely nothing in it for me?” he added to emphasize the insanity he saw in the request.

“Yes,” Louis blurted without waver, holding strong to their eye contact and asserting himself with the most confidence he could scrounge up into his demeanor.

“You got yourself a deal,” Max accepted, impressed with Alexander’s attitude even if it was an oblivious one. He didn’t know what people generally said about Alexander the Great, but none of them could ever say he wasn’t brave.

“Thank you,” Louis breathed, falling flat on his back when the exertion of this conundrum caught up to him.

“I’ll be back,” Max said, embracing Stacey and Jet and taking a sudden leave before anyone else could even begin to say farewell.

“We’re gonna go,” Lauren announced with her brother beside her, garnering Louis’ immediate attention because it was such an unexpectedly conclusive statement.

“Go? Go where?” he asked, sitting up and leaning his weight back onto his palms.

“The Roman Guardians could use some help, and we’re...we’re gonna look for Harry,” she informed, not a clue as to how the old King may react to the decision.

“You’re gonna look for him…” Louis repeated with a condescending chuckle, seriously doubting that mission would ever see success. If _he_ wasn’t sure he could find his lover, these English twins didn’t stand a chance.

“Look, someone’s got to. With you all heading into Scotland to look for the original, I feel like someone should stick around in Europe to keep searching for Azazel and them. Just to have at least a few of us actively looking while you’re busy,” she reasoned, quickly adding the secondary point onto the table again, “And I wasn’t joking about the Italian forces—I have a feeling they could use all the help they can get. No harm in seeing to both quests at once, right?”

“Oh, alright,” Louis agreed, secretly glad that he would be relieved from the stress of two extra lives in his hands. He appreciated their company so far and was still somewhat worried for their survival, but the more he thought about their helpful friendship to the grieving Hadrian after his death, the more faith he had in them. It was dangerous to go off on their own, but their hearts were in it—and that went a long way. “Please be careful,” he stressed, feeling much like a mother bird shoving his chicks out of the nest.

“Of course. We’ll find a way to let you know if we come across anything,” Lawrence vowed, the pair of them voicing their individual goodbye’s and then exiting through the same (only) exit that Max had.

“What has my existence come to…” Louis then said to no one in particular, slapping his palms over his eyes and allowing himself a few moments of sadness before turning his mind on plan-mode. “Jenner, I need you to get into Auron’s head,” he said to the still upset warlock, winning his gaze but nowhere near his bountiful cooperation.

“What?” Jenner asked warily, wondering if he’d heard that correctly because he certainly wasn’t a telepathic.

“Auron...he had a warlock put us in the same dream together,” Louis explained, watching the gears turn in Jenner’s head.

“I can’t do something like that. That’s powerful stuff, I wouldn’t know where to start,” Jenner stuttered, his contradictory gaze falling down to the book in his possession. Maybe _he_ didn’t know how...but this book…

“All we need is my blood and a sentimental object of Auron’s. I have both,” Louis said excitedly, procuring the dagger from his back pocket and holding it out for Jenner to see. Auron definitely wasn’t his first choice for this dream-walking shit, but he didn’t currently have anything important of Hadrian’s, so his brother would have to do.

“I…” Jenner trailed, his face taking on an anxious expression as he imagined the kind of power it would take to link two consciousnesses from vast distances. Surely he wouldn’t fare well under that kind of strain.

“Leave him be for now, Louis. Let’s talk about this later,” Harlock commanded, physically shielding his lover away from the pushy Louis because he was acting out of his selfish desires and not taking into account the health of his friends.

“Fine,” Louis grumbled, relocating the dagger to his front pocket and facing the opposite direction of the interspecies couple. _But later will come._

“Sunrise is upon us. Everyone go down to the lower level, I have to speak with Louis,” Martin announced as their group jumped to comply, the Sparrows, Marley, Liam with Johnny, and Harlock with Jenner, and even Jet with Louis’ reluctant Mother obediently disappearing through the northern archway to descend the spiral stairs and wait below for them to finish.

Louis looked around at the remaining individuals and discovered Zayn and Niall had stayed put, unwilling to leave the environment even if they wouldn’t miss anything—considering the downstairs folk were only listening in on their talk anyway.

“Zayn—”

“He can stay,” Louis stated firmly, giving his own longtime best friend a small smile when the blonde beamed at him in response.

“Fine,” Martin huffed, scooting in close to Louis and waiting until they five were sat in a circle. “What happened when you saw him? How did this come about?”

“He was a little beat up...it looked like he’d been in a fight with Auron by the time I got there. I was taken by Azazel from my room and led into a big...arena thing, I don’t know, you saw it...and he told them to forget me. There was a lot of arguing, and the twins were really upset, words were said but I wasn’t listening...it took a bit for Azazel to take them over, they fought so bloody hard, but he—he eventually did,” he sighed shakily, hugging himself around the middle and fending off Niall’s attempted comforts.

“Auron tortured us in front of him until he stopped caring,” Martin said bluntly just to get it out of the way, disinclined to deeply explain the shit they went through when it didn’t particularly matter anymore.  

“What?” Louis gasped, getting yanked straight out of his own problems and dropped headfirst into theirs. “That’s...that’s horrible, what the fuck happened?” he asked with an immensely troubled tone, piercing the two warriors with a horrified stare.

“Harry didn’t _stop caring_ , Martin—”

“Hadrian,” Louis interrupted fiercely, holding true to his decision to kill that name until it was officially reborn. “And what do you mean stop caring, that’s a mighty fucking claim to make,” he bit to the former butler, a fire dancing between their gazes as Martin struggled to rephrase.

“Psychological torture,” Tanner said for him, letting Martin deal with his internal strife while he took the talking stick. “He punished us for Har—Hadrian’s outbursts.”

“So Hadrian stopped making them,” Louis concluded, a spark of fury meant just for Auron flaring up behind his squeezed eyelids. _That black-hearted cockroach._

“Auron would walk in smelling like you and taunt him with all kinds of shit about you, and it was hard for Hadrian to ignore, but he tried really hard for our sake. We thought he broke forever when...when Auron almost killed me,” Tanner confessed, hating to bring it up but feeling it necessary for proper perspective on the situation. “Maybe Harry got over it by the time you saw him or something.”

Martin’s hand on Tanner’s thigh clenched and he let out a grunt containing every negative emotion he had, hot tears stinging his eyes as he submissively let them go. He was done pretending.

“Martin,” Louis lamented, finding an even higher scale of hatred to devote to Auron upon hearing this side of the Roman tunnel debacle. Louis hadn’t ever directly smelled Hadrian on Auron like that, but there was a high chance that Auron specifically sought to routinely erase that evidence; keep Louis focused on only him. “I’m so sorry, Martin. And I know Hadrian is too. I think Azazel did a lot to him; he didn't just ‘get over it.’ When I saw him for the first time he looked like a shell. I don't know what Azazel did to him after that to bring him back, but he only broke it at the end...and you two must have been so scared...I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Louis, it’s not your fault, but...did you really do those things with Auron that he said you’d done? Even I could smell your arousal on him,” Martin challenged, hoping for an immediate reaction of offended and appalled anger to quell his internal resentment that had brewed over time outside his control.

“Are you mad? I won’t even _grace_ that with a response,” Louis spat in unprecedented vexation, despising the fact that he couldn’t outright deny he’d done things he shouldn’t have. Full, gung-ho willing, though? Martin should know better than that. “What the fuck do you take me for?”

“I’m sorry,” Martin instantly mourned, beginning to cry harder when his treacherous thoughts were finally put to rest. “Of course you didn’t, it was just...it hurt Hadrian so badly—”

“Enough about that,” Louis begged, taking a few needed breaths before continuing. “We can’t do anything about Hadrian until Max gets back. My guess is that he’ll send us to collect the originals and band them together against Azazel. I can’t be sure, but that’s what it sounded like, didn’t it?” he asked the small group, wanting all opinions to gain a broader theory.

“It did,” Zayn agreed, sighing into his knuckles as Niall played with a bit of fuzz he’d collected from the floorboards. “I don’t understand how that’s possible, though. If he doesn’t even know where they are, how the fuck are we supposed to?” he reasoned logically, at a loss as to how they would convince eight brothers and sisters of Azazel to fight him.

“Well maybe Cináed will be a little more knowledgeable than Max,” Louis supposed, letting the concept of meeting his maker again truly sink in. He hadn’t seen him in so long, and the thought of waltzing up to him with an outrageous request didn’t sit too well. Who _would_ appreciate that?

“What’s Cináed like?” Niall asked out of curiosity, the others hanging onto Louis’ response for an idea of who they would be going to in their time of need.

“He’s...you don’t want to ever fuck with him,” Louis said vaguely, giving a good enough impression that the couples around him nodded in understanding. He wasn’t a merry fellow.

“These originals, man…” Zayn groaned, eliciting emotionless chuckles from every other party.  

“I didn’t even think they were real,” Martin said with chagrin, having been proven more wrong than he ever had before in his life.

“Definitely real,” Louis added, turning his eyes to focus on the night sky between the little oval that marked one of the four lookouts on two opposing walls of the tower. “So Auron’s vampires have released humans that were previously where?” he inquired to either Zayn or Niall, having been a bit out of touch with the surface for obvious reasons.

It was at that moment that Liam and Harlock made a reentrance into the scene, both without their recovering humans so they could make this topic speedy.

“Anything to add, boys?” Louis asked, eager for information he would undoubtedly need the second they left this tower for Scotland (presumably).

“They’d been held captive in big places like sports arenas for a while,” Liam began, wishing for nothing more than a telephone so he could call his English Guardians and demand to know what the hell had gone amiss in their brief absence. “Now it appears they’ve been released, though I haven’t the faintest why. It is apparent they are under a lure, and don't hardly realize what's happening to them. This Elder lure is ridiculous. Both Harlock and myself have to keep tabs on our humans in case it gets to them, and I can tell Stacey, Tanner, and Niall are somewhat bothered by it as well,” he said with a glance to the two present, daring them to deny it because it was already written on their faces.

“I can feel it,” Tanner admitted, curling further into Martin without a care for himself because he knew his lover would save him from anything he had the power to—and this time the power was all his.

“I’m not worried about it,” Niall added, earning a temple kiss from his relieved Zayn.

“Glad _you're_ confident,” Liam said, antsy about Johnny’s consequent mental state if this lure got any stronger. He already needed to keep him in focus and constantly produce his own lure to block out the foreign one, and that in itself could already be alerting nearby predators of their presence.

“Do you think we can stay here unnoticed until Max returns?” Louis asked Harlock, figuring he was the one to ask for no discernable reason. Harlock usually had a lot of answers in sticky situations, and he could use one.

“Never fails. Everyone always looks at me,” Harlock groaned, staring out into the night as he pondered over the concept. “Probably. But say the predators make some routine sweep of the streets, right? Wouldn’t be that impressive for them to notice a large group of vampires holed up in a bell tower,” he muttered, speculating the numerous possibilities as to why they hadn’t been noticed by this point.

“They’ve got their hands full,” Louis assumed, groaning to the bells above and heaving himself up to watch the rione of Trastevere. He stuck his head out the opening and sniffed around for Elders, finding at least six in the town that were significantly younger than him and couldn’t detect them like he could. If they decided to move closer, Louis’ group would have problems, but they seemed stationary for now—most likely getting ready to sleep because sunrise was upon all of them.

As he thought of it, the humans of the streets suddenly fell down like dolls with snipped strings, and he shoved himself halfway out the opening to zoom in on what the hell he just saw. “Guys,” he called, motioning his hand for them to approach.

His seated friends jumped to their feet and stepped up to view what they’d just heard, their jaws dropping open as they noticed the flipped switch of the rione’s consciousness, horizontal and slumbering humans lining the sidewalks with scattered items around them like a halo from everything in their arms they’d dropped.

“They just put them to sleep?” Liam concluded in amazement, a clear picture of their system coming into his realm of understanding. Keep the humans in a zombie like state all night long and when they needed to sleep, force it on the humans too.

“But we can’t do anything about it,” Louis sighed, pointing his finger to the east to emphasize the lightening sky. “We need sleep too.”

“This is ridiculous,” Harlock spat, in sheer disbelief that they had to deal with shit like this on their plate when they could and _should_ be living relatively peaceful existences.

“What would Hadrian do right now?” Niall asked the thoughtful Louis, a little bit of nerves surfacing over bringing that specific creature up, but maybe it could help?

Louis had been asking himself the same thing and he laughed at Niall’s question, patting him on the shoulder to ensure Niall that he wasn’t mad over it. “He’d go to sleep and think on this with a clear head,” he said surely, wondering how different Hadrian’s true current actions were. Depending on where he was, he may already be asleep, but did he care about the humans? Was he a part of the problem now? Auron was their enemy—so now, against all of Louis’ wishes—Hadrian was too. Double-trouble in the most vividly destructive sense. A hostile twin takeover. “It never fucking ends,” he muttered to himself, regarding his endless flow of problems in life.

“This will,” Liam and Harlock said in time with each other, sputtering in amusement at their mirrored statement.

“We’ll stop this,” Harlock continued, yawning into his fist from the teasing threat of the sun.

“Zombie-humans controlled by predators everywhere who are willingly controlled by Auron and now his brother beside him... _my lover_...who are now both controlled by Azazel. Are you saying _we_ can stop this?” Louis asked skeptically, grudgingly accepting the arms of Niall and Tanner when they curled around him in support—precisely how they used to when they were all weak little humans.

“You’re right, it doesn’t look good,” Liam admitted, scoping the streets below and shaking his head at the mindless humans of the world. The odds against them were vast, but there had to be a way. “But we have Max,” he supplied, looking to Harlock to further that advantage because he knew him better.

“We do. They have the numbers and organization to control the world, and the Aelius twins with an original immortal on their side, but we have one of those too. Max is a greater asset than you’re making him out to be. And he might lead us to your maker, and if _he_ agrees to help, who knows? Us and the scattered Guardians don’t stand a chance, you’re right. But us, a united Guardian force, and all nine of Azazel’s siblings? Are you kidding? We can do some major damage with that,” Harlock said determinedly, brushing his thumb across Louis’ cheekbone when he sighed heavily.

“If we can take Azazel on, we can get the twins back,” Niall said hopefully, confounded by how they’d do that, but the original siblings would obviously play a huge role. “Even the asshole one.”

“You’re right,” Louis agreed, palming his hair back off his face and adjusting the waistband of his pants as he prepared to go downstairs and get some sleep until sunset. “And I’m serious about Jenner’s help, Harlock. I need that spell. Imagine how different things could be if I could communicate with them—we could find out where they are. That would make things so much easier,” he urged, comforted by the cooperative nod from the eyepatch immortal.

“And he’ll help you. With everything he can. I just needed you to give him a break,” Harlock eased, leading the way as they unanimously made their way to the archway across the room.

“You need to give yourself a break too,” Martin said to Louis, throwing his arm over his shoulder and walking in step with him down to the lower level (that was thankfully windowless) where most of their forces were already passed out, save for Stacey who had patiently waited for their return.

Louis smiled to the butler and walked over to his smiling Mother, settling down beside her and letting himself be spooned while Niall and Zayn took the other side of him, leaving everyone else to their own devices as they searched for a spot to sleep and cuddle with their lovers. _Their lovers..._

“It’s gonna be okay, baby,” Stacey whispered into her son’s ear, pretending not to notice the tearless and silent sobs that shook his core while Niall delicately kissed the knuckles of his hands he’d grabbed onto.

“Sleep well, guys,” Louis said strongly as he shoved his emotions away, forcing his eyes to close as he beckoned sleep like a taxi in New York, though that was admittedly a painful analogy to make. This had _started_ in that city. Ever since New York, everything had been one giant storm of violent and incurable chaos, and that destroyed city had been the last place Louis had seen the old world in.

 _Some new world order_ , he scoffed in his head, turning his thoughts to the object of his undying hatred to alleviate some of the maddening pressure in his heart. _Azazel, you heinous dog, you don’t even know what’s coming for you. You can have the world, and every human in it—I don’t even fucking care—but you can’t have Hadrian. He’s mine. Even Auron doesn’t deserve what you’ve done, and I’m going to stop it. I swear to Zeus on everything I am, I’ll take them from you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ahaa. AhhhahMWAHAHAHHA WHY AM I LIKE THIS? Also another Halbum reference *okay sign emoji*


	10. One Happy Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is egregiously late. The last two chapters I HAD been working on went soooo fast, and they were brilliant, and then I got to the one I'm on now and just *obscene fart noise* was not feeling it. So I had to redo it—which is not the first time something like that has happened, but it's taken me three whole days to construct it how I want. Now I'm only halfway finished, but I was like I'm reeeally holding up the flow rn, so I gotta upload this one anyway. Been quite long enough, and this chapter here is so behind me anyway, I don't care. I can break my rule this one time. Halfway is stupid, but it's good—it's coming along, and things for our lovers are good as well. Eheheh. Yeah. Things are good. ISH.

_“What are these things?” Hadrian asked in fascination while he held his torch out to illuminate them, poking the strange and disfigured vampires they kept passing in the face and wondering why they showed no reaction._

_“You don’t remember?” Auron asked with raised eyebrows, knocking one over because he found an overflow of amusement in the action. These things could be testy if he was alone, but with Azazel around, they were like statues; able to be fucked with however he pleased._

_“No…” Hadrian mused, studying the black eyes that looked everywhere but into his own with an innocent but suspicious curiosity. Should he really know what these are?_

_“You’ve seen them a thousand times, Hayway,” Auron chuckled, hooking his elbow through Hadrian’s and racing off to catch back up to Azazel who hadn’t stopped for their dweller ganderings._

_“You boys finished?” Azazel asked once they filled in the empty spot behind him, looking over his shoulder at his oblivious twins and finding a tidal wave of pure joy in his bitter heart. How very long he had waited for a moment like this._

_“Where are we going?” Auron asked in lieu of a response, staying true to his general character no matter the strain put inside his mind._

_“Romania,” Azazel replied, halting for a split second until the twins were flanked at his sides and then dropping either arm over the backs of their shoulders._

_“Romania sounds nice, why are we going there?” Hadrian inquired, ever so filled with wonderment._

_“So you two can have some fun together,” Azazel informed as though it should have been obvious, kissing both boys on the cheek and spitting endorphins down to the ground. “My rulers of the world could use a bit of a break.”_  

_“We rule the world?” Hadrian asked dubiously, astounded he couldn't automatically remember such a crucial detail in his life._

_“Okay, now I know something’s wrong,” Auron muttered, ducking out of Azazel’s arm and hopping to the left to walk backwards directly in front of his brother. “Are you feeling okay?” he asked with a face full of concern, prepared to do anything for Hadrian that he could potentially need._

_“Uh...yeah,” Hadrian said unsurely, palming at his forehead and shaking his head to discard the fuzz in his thoughts. It didn't work, but for some reason, he wasn't worried about it. “Just a bit cloudy.”_

_“If you say so. Let me know if it gets worse,” Auron requested softly, stepping back over to Azazel’s right side and joining in when their maker took off at full speed toward that which was apparently Romania. He couldn't quite shake the truth that Hadrian’s cloudiness was felt by him as well, but there was no evidence to suggest anything was in fact amiss. Time will tell._

 

_~~~_

 

Hadrian woke with a start, and a frightening tightness in his chest almost made him cry out, but the arms around him constricted to quell the sensation in an instant. It was ironic that a claustrophobic feeling could be cured by being squeezed, but he knew the owner of these arms, and that knowledge was enough to flip the tables.

“What's wrong, Hayway?” Auron’s deep and groggy voice croaked in his ear, the breath of the question tickling the little hairs on his neck.

Hadrian grunted and shifted around to face his brother, Auron’s arms releasing to give him room until he was fully turned around. He scooted so close their noses were almost touching, slightly discomforted by the hard dirt they were lying on but finding enjoyment in his lifelong protector’s embrace. “I had a dream we hated each other,” he whispered, cringing from the memory of the negative relationship that had seemed so real at the time.

“I...I had that dream too,” Auron said in surprise, not so much upset by the dream as he was annoyed. That would never happen.

“That wouldn't ever happen, would it?” Hadrian asked, stealing his thoughts right out of his head like he always did.

“No,” Auron chuckled, tucking Hadrian’s worried face into his neck and kissing the top of his forehead while he played with his twin’s identical curls. “It wouldn't.”

“It’s just…” Hadrian began, tangling their legs together and huffing onto Auron’s pronounced collarbones. “Don't you feel like something’s...not right?” he asked in confusion, having nowhere to take that question but finding he was infuriatingly unable to let it go.

“Mmm...not right how?” Auron mused, grabbing the nape of Hadrian’s neck and rolling over onto his back to pull his little brother against his chest.

“I don't know, just—off,” he settled on, his frustrated groan pulling another breath of musical laughter from his brother’s lungs.

“Well aside from sleeping on dirt all day, I don't see how anything could be off. I'm here and I have you here with me—that makes everything right in the world,” he asserted, a sudden contradiction in the deep seas of his mind gripping him around the spine and making him flinch. “Wait,” he said ominously, knocking Hadrian off his chest as he propped himself up on his elbow, holding his brother’s face with his free hand and staring intensely into his light green eyes ablaze from the still lit torch in the room. There _was_ something he was missing here. Something huge. “ _Wait_ …”

“Morning, darlings,” Azazel suddenly announced from the archway of their little enclosure, walking in from some other chamber as he finished tying his dreads in a giant bun atop his head.

The second he'd entered, Auron had blinked his momentary confusion away, and both brothers were now smiling placidly at their maker as he approached and sat down beside them. “What are we doing?” the eldest asked as he stretched out on the ground, giving Hadrian a pat on the hip before sitting upright and shaking his hair out of habit.

“Thought you two would enjoy a prowl above ground,” Azazel suggested, referring of course to a massacre at their earliest chosen convenience.

“Wanna kill Romanians?” Auron asked over his shoulder, cooing at the lionesque yawn Hadrian made that split his jaws and showcased his obviously interested fangs.

“Not specifically,” Hadrian snorted when his yawn passed, rubbing at his eyes and throwing himself into a sitting position. “But I do wanna kill humans,” he smirked, letting his brother help him to his feet after he stood.

“How close are we to the surface?” Auron asked Azazel, who turned his white-eyed gaze to the ceiling of the tunnels.

“Not far. But you needn't worry, I'm going to take you up there,” Azazel explained, trusting himself to find the entrance to the upper world faster than these two could.

“Are you coming with us?” Hadrian asked happily, excited to do their favourite thing together as a family, something he inexplicably feels like he hasn't experienced in a long time.

“Would I miss you two at work?” Azazel reasoned, spitting off to the side and then flashing them his biggest grin.

“Well then, we'll give you a show,” Auron chuckled, grasping Hadrian’s hand and running out into the hall, knowing full well that Azazel was right behind them and ready to direct the route to the surface. _It's good to have you back, Hayway,_ he thought to his brother, squeezing their clasped hands and...wait...back? No, nevermind...

 

\---

 

The twins popped up out of the cave they'd ascended like springs into a thick forest, taking deep and unneeded breaths of the Romanian night air and sighing them out in contentment. Azazel then joined them and sniffed around pointedly for signs of life they couldn't discern and veered off toward a break in the trees, and they followed eagerly.

“Look at that—hunting grounds,” Azazel lilted, cocking his head out over the cliff he'd come to the edge of while the twins inched forward to peer down with him. Peer down into the human mountain town below.

“Perfect,” Auron muttered giddily, Hadrian buzzing like an impatient bee beside him.

“Your vampires haven't been here yet. They'll be scattering like fearful insects,” Azazel noted, the lack of his kind’s scent proving the area uncharted. Untainted.

“When’s the last time you had a kill?” Auron asked his maker, hesitant to run off and start pillaging the selection without letting Azazel go first.

“Hmph. When’s the last time I went to the surface?” Azazel replied, that in itself alluding he hadn't killed since.

“Too long ago,” Auron said, shocked it had truly been that long—to his knowledge, the last surface venture of Azazel’s had been sometime right before Auron had killed...who had he killed? Someone in Britannia. Near the end of the fifteenth century. Why can't he remember?

Hadrian, unknowingly, was in a similar boat; Auron and Azazel talked of things regularly that he couldn't quite picture himself—he knew he'd been there for all of it, but the details were fuzzy. This was his cherished family, and he'd spent nearly two thousand years with them. So why can't he remember?

“I'm not interested. They’re all for you,” Azazel said, pulling Auron and Hadrian’s thoughts away from mental mysteries and into the present.

“Thanks, Zaza,” Auron said, eliciting a rather anticipated cringe in displeasure.

“How many times have I told you never to call me ‘Zaza’?” he grunted, rolling his eyes when the twins snickered like jesters. He’d gotten more than he’d asked for by uniting them, but he couldn't deny the fondness he had for them despite their antics. Especially credited to their antics. “Go fulfill yourselves,” he chuckled, giving Auron a slight nudge over the edge to get things moving.

Auron grinned and yanked his brother into his arms, the pair tumbling down the cliff together like a whole herd of oxen while Azazel gracefully floated after them, having no personal need to rush. He wouldn't ever want to rush this anyway—it was far too good.

Hadrian and Auron finally reached the bottom of their vertical descension and brushed each other off while they laughed in tandem; it had felt like flying. “I'll race you,” Auron proposed mischievously, shaking his legs like they were asleep and finding dependable footing for take-off.

“You'll lose,” Hadrian snorted confidently, knowing he'd always been physically superior to his brother in nearly every way—he wouldn't be saying that out loud, though.

Auron didn't say another word and split the air to sprint toward the town, and Hadrian sputtered indignantly as he scrambled to chase after him. “That is _not_ fair!” he shouted over the wind, propelled faster by the answering chuckle of his cheating twin.

Hadrian pounded his feet onto the dirt and eventually caught up to Auron just moments before they would step into the town’s territory, and he gave a sidelong wink of victory as he passed, locking onto an abandoned human standing in the outskirts and leaping right for him, fangs bared and claws drawn.

The human got maybe one second of preparation as he whipped around to face what he thought was a wild animal, but the threat collided with him too quick to see, and before he knew it, he was coming in his trousers.

Hadrian hissed against the neck he'd impaled and drunk down the human’s blood like there was a timer on the action, on a fast track to kill him and secure himself as the winner. To his surprise, when he looked up, Auron was in absolutely no hurry; in fact, he was merely leaned against a tree and watching Hadrian with approving eyes, blatantly proud of his little brother instead of frustrated with his success.

Soon there wasn't a drop left in his victim, and Hadrian let its corpse crash down onto the dirt, gasping like an asthmatic as he rose back up to stand. Auron pushed himself off the tree trunk and skipped over to him, a primping hand coming up and wiping the smeared blood off Hadrian’s face for him.

“Beautiful,” Auron praised with a smile, turning around when Azazel barked out a laugh.

“Messy child,” their maker noted, wondering where in the world Hadrian’s manners could have gone to make him so sloppy in his kills.

“Sorry—oh here,” Hadrian squeaked, taking a knee beside his victim and slamming his hand down into its chest, wrapping his fingers around the squishy heart within and yanking it back out while it snapped away from all its tubing. It was still coated in blood and hadn't stopped _too_ long ago, so Hadrian figured Azazel would still appreciate it. He threw it over to his maker and smiled when Azazel caught it effortlessly, mentally crossing his fingers that he'd done a good thing.

“You remembered,” Azazel said with a smirk, taking a sizeable bite out of the gifted organ and studying its flavour. He nodded to show his gratitude and the brothers grinned, now able to focus on themselves after pleasing their creator.

“Next one is yours,” Hadrian said to his twin, fluffing up his hair and giggling when his hands were fondly batted away.

“Thanks for the thought, Hayway,” Auron crooned while he turned his face toward the town houses, breathing deeply to find the closest substantial group and curling his lips up in excitement when he sussed them out. “But the next _five_ are mine.”

 

~~~

 

“Alexander.”

“Hmrphmprhrm,” Louis grumbled with a scratchy throat, already hating the night he'd come into. He'd been taken out of a dream in which he and Hadrian were back in their old England home, fucking to the sound of rain pelting their roof—you'd be pissed too.

“Alexander!” the voice repeated, its scent and only its scent making Louis open his eyes because it was that unnervingly foreboding one of an original—one he'd come to know as Max.

“Yes,” he snorted as he forced himself awake, snapping to attention and propping himself up on his elbows as he peered up at Max’s bent over and impatient form.

“I found him,” Max said simply, letting Alexander take the five sluggish seconds he needed for that statement to compute in his sleep-addled mind.

“Shit, guys!” Louis quietly screamed, if that makes sense, slapping at every body he could get to while he let out a continuous stream of “ _psst_!”

“Max,” Stacey greeted in pleasant surprise, the chain reaction of vampires waking whomever was next to them finally coming to an end as Jenner was the last to pop up.

“Is he in Scotland?” Louis asked now that all ears were tuned into them, each creature in the tower alert and rigid for a response.

“He is in Scotland, yes,” Max affirmed, raising an eyebrow at the collective shoulder slump of relief.

“Where in Scotland? It's not exactly a town,” Harlock said, seconded by the silent nod of Liam.

“I don’t know, north,” Max said unhelpfully, shrugging when several groans rang out amongst the group. “What? It’s not like I got close to him. The instant I noticed his scent, I ran back the way I came. Best for him not to know I was snooping around his area for now...but I made it quite a ways through Britannia—enough to assume I’d gotten to Scotland—and he was still greatly far ahead. So, north,” he concluded flippantly, like he’d bestowed them with the exact coordinates.

“Northern Scotland, great,” Harlock sighed, leaning back on his hands and resting his cheek on Jenner’s bright orange curls when he snuggled into him.

“Don’t be rude, you all. Max has been very good to us,” Stacey chastised, giving her vampiric Father a grateful smile, which he visibly appreciated.  

“Mine are the nicest,” Max praised to his two daughters, glad at least that they were here to make his interactions enjoyable.

“Anything we need to know?” Louis asked, having forgotten too much about Cináed to know how he should and shouldn’t act. All he could recall was his horrible and patronizing attitude, his strawberry-blonde hair and full beard, and the gleam of that black blood inches from his tempted and ignorant human lips. After he’d traumatically killed Bagoas, Cináed had finally introduced himself by name, but that had been the only time Alexander had heard it. Cináed had insisted he call him “Creator” or more simply “God,” though back then it was said as “Theós.” What a prat.

Cináed had left Alexander on his own after only a short duration of training, claiming he had many important matters to attend to and seeing himself out of the immortal King’s existence from then on out. It would definitely be interesting to see him again after so much time apart, and Louis could only speculate how friendly or otherwise that reunion would go.

“I honestly couldn’t tell, but I think he might be above ground,” Max informed with a face scrunched in concentration, trying to recall every detail of the half-second encounter he’d had with the scent. As he’d stated, he hadn’t stuck around to study it, and only getting a small glimpse wasn’t much to base conclusions off of. Cináed could always move by the time they got there anyway. This, however, is all he could do, and whether or not it was truthfully enough, it would need to be.

“Alright, Max. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” Louis said genuinely, not letting his disappointment over lacking specifics blind him from the overall good Max’s confirmation had done.

“It was no problem. Good to feel wind on my face. Hadn’t gotten much of that in a while, but since your band of monkeys tumbled into my American tunnels, I’ve traveled rather extensively. I thank you for it—making me get out,” he chuckled, stepping over to his daughters to give them his warm embrace because he could tell this interaction was nearing its end.  

“Where will you be? What happens if Cináed agrees and you’re nowhere to be seen? We’ll need both of you, won’t we?” Stacey asked into his chest, squeezing his midsection with strong arms while Jet went for the more cordial back-pat-hug over her.

“I’ll wait for you in Britannia,” Max said, visually double-checking with Alexander to see if that was even in their plans.

“Depending on what happens with Cináed, we'll come there next, yeah,” Louis assured, standing to try his hand at hugging Max goodbye when Stacey and Jet dispersed—seemed like the thing to do.

Max smirked at the old King and accepted his unprecedented gesture, enveloping him in his arms and subconsciously rubbing the stress out of his back. “You are deserving of any praise given to you,” he said quietly, offhandedly wondering why he'd said such a respectful thing.

Louis frowned and craned his neck up to catch the original’s black gaze, slightly losing complex thought as the immortal’s undeniable beauty took precedence in his mind. Max looked like a God of pure lust, the object of anyone's fancy regardless of personal taste, and so did his brother. So did Cináed. Louis supposed it just ran in the family. “Thank you,” he said in a trance, imperceptibly parting his lips when Max gingerly held him by the chin.

“Stop looking at me like that, Alexander. You're not my type,” Max said with a charming wink, stepping away from the King and giving short wishes of luck to the group before disappearing through the archway to return to his familiar world under the Earth.

 _Presumptuous bastard,_ Louis thought fondly, not finding it odd by any means that he'd been taken by such enamouring beauty. That didn't mean he wanted to be with him.

“So...to Scotland?” Liam asked from the corner of the room with Johnny under his arm, both looking to be soaking in their allotted time for affection.

Louis was about to voice his approval when Jenner’s sharp outcry stole every fibre of his focus, and by the time he looked to the warlock, shit was already going haywire. Jenner had evidently snapped and flung the heavy book open in a momentary lapse of control, and he was clearly paying for it now. He clutched at his head with one hand and flipped the sturdy pages with the other, his eyes zooming down characters of an ancient language while a cold wind blasted through the interior of the tower.

“Fuck, really? Jenner!” Harlock scolded, warily approaching his lover to try and mend the situation when Jenner growled at him to stay back—at least, that's what it sounded like. “Jenner!”

“Why didn't you stop him?” Louis demanded, his concern growing when the wind grew louder and more persistent and Jenner’s skin continued to glow brighter. None of that seemed healthy.

“It's _my fault_?!” Harlock snarled, appearing to be physically blocked by an invisible barrier when he tried to disobey Jenner’s wishes and come for him anyway. “Jenner, close the book!”

At this point everyone began to panic, multiple vampires throwing themselves against a clear wall that knocked them back with a stronger force than they were using to attemptedly breach it. Jenner’s cries grew frantic as he turned the pages, his magical side eating up the power of the book without his control.

Louis dropped to his knees and crawled across the floorboards to see how close he could get, his eyes widening when Jenner began to float off the ground with an ethereal aura framing his weightless form. “Jenner!” he shouted, reaching out and hissing when his palm hit the electric wall that surrounded him.

“What the fuck, Jenner!” Harlock begged in exasperation, dreading all the consequences that would come from this magical excursion.

“Baby, close the book!” Stacey suggested, her motherly concerns falling on deaf ears as she was blown backward into Jet’s awaiting arms.

Everyone that tried to approach was flung a good distance away, and that was precisely why Louis was consistently stomach-crawling on the floor like a soldier and digging his nails into the wooden boards. “Can you hear me?” he howled, straining his muscles to keep pulling himself along every time he was blown back a foot or so.

Jenner’s lower half fully levitated toward the ceiling and his hands desperately gripped onto the grounded book that was apparently so rooted to the boards that it would not go with him. He looked like he was an astronaut in a spaceship, fighting the lack of gravity to keep turning pages while huge gusts of wind kept perpetually blowing everyone backward. “Fuck!” he shouted clearly through the nonsensical screeches, his body on overload while he ingested an endless supply of ancient spells.

“Jenner, the dream spell!” Louis bellowed over the roar of the tornado in the room, resorting to pushing his personal agenda if this was going to happen with or without him. “Find it!”

Against all the outside words that Jenner had not registered, those broke through like a lighthouse. _Dream spell._ Jenner ripped his gaze from the pages to lock onto Louis’, nodding his head in slow-motion and promptly scavenging the book for that sole purpose. _Dream spell, dream spell, dream spell._

“Are you fucking kidding me, Louis!” Harlock growled, lunging for the King before Liam caught him around the waist and consequently toppled over from the harsh air, causing both of them to crash onto the ground with a mighty thump. “You self-serving prick! You really think now is the time for that?” Harlock reasoned in disbelief after the shock of his fall passed, cementing the battle he'd have with the King after this.

Jenner squeaked and drew both their passionate attention spans to him; he'd landed on a particular page and was now looking at it like it was the meaning of life, and Louis had a pretty good idea that meant he'd found the dream spell. “Internalize it!” he commanded, suddenly flying across the room when Harlock broke free of Liam and pelted with him with a sidelong kick.

“Jenner, close it!” Harlock negated, slapping at the barrier and wincing every time the pain licked at his hand. “Fuck the spell, close the book!” he barked, using his claws to try and rip through the wall when Jenner’s routine screams got louder. He was trying his hardest to get through the spell he'd been assigned to study, and it was causing him hell—just like Harlock would cause Louixander.

Jenner didn't even hear Harlock and maintained sharp vigilance on the spell before his eyes, devoting a small portion of his overworked mind on carefully reading what would be expected of him to perform it. It was advanced without question, and he seriously wondered if he'd be able to tackle it by himself. Once he got to the end of the page, he wrenched his head toward Louis to show he got it, and the King scrambled across the floor to get back to him.

In light of the sudden eye contact, Louis understood Jenner had captured the spell, and though he was elated to get that confirmation, the now blinding glow of the warlock’s body was starting to scare him. “Now close it, Jenner! Close the book!” he ordered with as much lure as he could utilize, trying uselessly to break through the thick layers of magic to reach Jenner’s mind. “Close it now!”

Jenner didn't seem willing to close the book, but he must have known it was a necessity, and his arm strained to lift the left side of the book from the floor so he could flip it over. It wouldn't budge and that clearly terrified him, so he used both hands, hooking his fingers under the left cover and yanking at it for all he was worth. It was a slow build, and took an excess of external screaming, but it finally broke free and he flung the book closed, instantly shutting down the powerful wind, the supernatural pause of gravity, and of course his own consciousness.

Harlock leapt to his feet and dashed to his lover as he began to fall back down to Earth, catching him in the nick of time and cradling him close while he inspected him for noticeable injuries. His skin was almost steaming like he'd been magically fried, and apart from the beating heart and flowing blood, he was completely dead to the world. “Aw, Jenny,” he whined, squeezing him in his arms and apologizing profusely into his ear.

Louis carefully got up and cracked his spinal cord, his joints aching from the exertion of fighting the wind, and tiptoed up to the couple on the floor while everyone else held hands over their mouths and chests in shock. “Is he okay?” he asked Harlock, trying to peer over the Elder’s shoulder and see for himself.

Harlock’s shoulders flinched and he gently set Jenner down, turning around and rising to his feet threateningly as though he was rusted and in need of oil. “Is he okay?” he repeated lowly with an undertone of incredulity. “Is he—of _course he's not okay_ , bloody look at him!” he yelled, pointing a finger at his warlock behind him while he stalked toward Louis menacingly. “I'll have your head for this!”

Louis took a step back and raised his fists, accepting the obvious challenge because he did harbor some accountability for the event and deserved the blame for it. Both vampires’ fangs dropped and they hissed at one another, simultaneously darting forward and meeting the other’s strikes in the middle, transforming into a growling and snarling mess as they wrestled on the floor.

Teeth snapped and made contact here and there, and Louis let himself get a little beat up, knowing full well that if he was in Harlock’s position, revenge was something he would chase to his last days. “I'm sorry!” he gasped as his throat was sliced open, a hand smacking down over to it keep pressure on the bleeding wound. Harlock wasn't showing any mercy, that was for sure.

That was the point that Martin, Zayn, and Liam flew over to pry Harlock from Louis’ brutalized form, Erakus adding himself to the mix and digging his claws into Harlock’s legs to make him stop kicking them off.

“Enough!” Liam snapped, dragging the loud and unforgiving Harlock away from Louis while he thankfully recovered.

“Get off me!” Harlock demanded, thrashing against the arms that had forcefully snaked around him.

“Let him go,” Louis seconded when his throat wound closed, nodding at the puzzled looks he received in response. “Do it. Let him go,” he repeated, flexing his legs to straighten his knees and stand at full height, well prepared for a second round of attacks to make contact the second they released him.

Harlock’s captors grudgingly let go and slid backward, but the Elder surprised everyone by simply brushing the wrinkles out of his clothes and crossing his arms in contempt while he glared at Louis’ wary form. “I fucking understand that you’re hurting, and you’re desperate for relief from it, but don’t you fucking dare use _my lover_ as your guinea pig to do that!” he said, sliding forward only to grab Louis’ collar and pull him in close. “He helps you because he _wants_ to, not because he fucking has to—so don’t make him!” he roared, shoving Louis away from him and returning to his comatose warlock to gather his unresponsive body up and distance himself from the group to look after him in seclusion.

Louis secured his footing from the push and bent in half while he clutched his knees, taking in a deep breath and letting it out to release the stress of the past two minutes. He felt like an asshole, yes, but finding Hadrian and Auron didn’t just help him and his emotions—finding and getting through to them could help the world. Louis knew it would always look selfish coming from him, but there was a bigger picture here, biases aside. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” he said to the Elder who clearly wasn’t listening anymore, looking instead to the rest of his friends for some kind of consensus.

“What do we do now?” Marley asked to divert the focus, pressing himself against the wall to check for any signs of nearby predators—they’d make quite a substantial racket, and it honestly wouldn’t surprise him if it had alerted every predator around of their location.

“Wait for Jenner to recover,” Louis sighed, fully comprehending the importance of that before continuing. If that event was going to have some long-lasting effect on Jenner, they’d need to know about it first.

“I hope he's okay,” Veronica said sadly, patted on the shoulder by her like-minded husband.

“Of course he's okay,” Harlock asserted sternly, huffing at his group’s lack of faith and choosing to ignore anything else he would hear. He bit into his lover’s neck as a last resort and drank the spiciest blood from him he'd ever tasted, merely hoping this would actually do something and not be in vain—he was literally swallowing hot sauce.

Silence reigned for some time, and Louis didn't think the previously mentioned recovery would be happening any time soon, but Jenner’s pleasured moan from awakening via bite endorphins said otherwise.

Heads turned to observe the stirring warlock, but eyes made every attempt to avert to an adjacent area rather than on the lovers themselves.

Eventually Harlock pulled off and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, breathing through his teeth to cool his burning tongue, and helping Jenner to sit upright when he made a move to. “How are you feeling?” he asked, ‘checking’ his warlock’s temperature with a palm on his forehead as if that would tell him anything—as if Jenner didn't already feel like he was overheating 99.999% of the time.

“Ancient magic sucks,” Jenner groaned in response, squinting his eyes at the faraway book like it might spring into cataclysmic action again without warning.

Chuckles reverberated throughout the group and all were eased by the knowledge that Jenner was still himself, and Stacey rushed over in a fret.

“You had me worried sick!” she cried, throwing her light brown hair over her shoulder and stomping her hands on her thin waist.

“Mom, back off,” Louis urged lightheartedly, stepping up to guide her away and then finally meeting Jenner’s eyes, regret shining blatantly in his own.

“I found the spell,” Jenner said needlessly, unknowing of Harlock’s aggravated reaction as he rolled his eyes and slowly knocked his head backward until he was staring at up the bells.

“I know you did,” Louis said carefully, disinclined to press him on it if Jenner would display any kind of negative aftereffect—not to mention Harlock’s merciless anger toward him for the time being...and indefinite future.

“It’s complicated,” Jenner informed in annoyance, wishing that it wasn’t so that he could whip it out whenever he wanted. “It’s tough to explain what I’d need to do, because you don’t like— _speak_ my supernatural language, so to say, but...but it’s not simple,” he explained to the best of his ability, leaning back into Harlock’s chest and smiling at the arms that instinctively curled around him.

“In no world would I assume it would be,” Louis assured, wholly supportive of anything Jenner could physically accomplish for him—he wouldn’t ever show scorn if Jenner couldn’t do this; it was just that he sort of _knew_ he _could_. Jenner was more powerful a being here than he, or anyone else gave him credit for, but Harlock and Louis knew his true outstanding potential. It almost had a scent to it; a distinct scent that basically said, “Stay away from me, I’m dangerous.”

“Don’t worry yourself on it, Jen,” Harlock tried to persuade, giving up in an instant when Jenner twisted around and gave him a heated glare.

“I will worry as much as I damn well please. I’m gonna do this,” he vowed, his fierce determination to help those he held dear figuratively lightening his aura in a way the dark magic couldn’t even try to replicate. “Only thing is I can’t carry that book anymore. It’s too much. Small doses. Someone else needs to take it with them to get it away from my tempted hands, but I’m _going_ to try that spell. We have everything we need, technically, it’s only my skill level I’m concerned about,” he muttered, turning his gaze to Louis, who was obviously trying not to grin in excitement. “I’m gonna do this, Louis.”

“I believe you,” Louis said quickly with his hands held up, chancing a glance at Harlock and quickly looking away when he found nothing but barely-contained rage.

“ _Now_ do we go to Scotland?” Marley asked once again to keep everyone’s mindset in the flow of their current affairs, hip to hip with Erakus at his side and subtly kneading at his arse as he spoke to fluster him—that action might be contradictory to his words’ intention, but it was too delicious a body part to stay away from.

“Would you stop?” Erakus giggled just louder than a whisper, batting at Marley’s roaming hand and striving for seriousness.

“Sorry, love,” Marley murmured, just barely leaning sideways to plant his lips on Erakus’s neck when Harlock stood abruptly and cleared his throat.

“Alright, let’s go. Jenner, I’ll carry you,” he said, bending back down to lift him into his arms. “Stacey, take that book,” he added, staying put until the thing was safely collected and hidden from Jenner’s immediate reach.

Stacey scooped the object into the crook of her elbow, half expecting it to explode or something similar, but she felt nothing when touching it. Amazing creatures, warlocks were—to be so sensitive to something that didn’t exist to her was utterly fascinating. She was almost jealous... _almost_. She transferred the book to any open arm as she shrugged out of her backpack and knelt down to stuff it inside, pushing the water bottles to one side so it would fit. She thought better of that and just threw the last two toward Liam and Harlock, their humans luckily catching both and promptly downing them like dried plants.

Once she’d wrangled the book into the interior of her bag, she shook it to really drive it down and returned it to her shoulders, feeling no extra measures of being weighed down by something as she did before. “Alakazam,” she quipped happily, furrowing eyebrows from everyone who wasn’t her son.

“Presto,” Jenner snorted, closing his eyes and surrendering himself to Harlock’s care. Long way to Scotland—hopefully they made it there in one piece.

 

\---

 

“Wait,” Louis hissed, peeking his head through the tiny crack they’d made by opening the cathedral door to ensure they were relatively safe from enemy view. He couldn’t smell any directly outside, or even a few metres away, but nobody could be too careful in this sketchy circumstance. That would amount to oblivion, no doubt about it. “Okay,” he said as he looked up to the ceiling he couldn’t even begin to describe, pushing the inward-swinging door open and letting it go the rest of the way when his arm span reached its limit.

The heavy wooden door knocked against the side of the interior pillar, and the outside was revealed to them in spurts when they all got a quick glance. They appeared to be behind more bars than they’d thought. _Of course._

Louis stepped out onto the beige hall that ran across the length of the building’s face, the unexpected walkway boxing them in with five archways that had five black metal gates up to their tips. It reminded Louis of an abbey, but he figured this ancient place was more of a tourist trap now than a constant home for Roman Catholic nuns, if going by the heavy red velvet stanchions on brass posts being all over the place. Louixander understood the curious attraction of tourism—this building was older than Harlock, after all.

Back to the gates—it wouldn’t take any amount of effort on the vampires’ part to break one open, but it would be loud, and there wasn’t anything they could do to stop that. “Ugh,” he moaned in distaste, choosing the closest gate on the left-hand side of the row before them and shuffling right up to it.

Everyone else filled in behind him and he looked to see who had the most delicate of hands, thinking maybe that would make some amount of difference in the—

Harlock shocked everyone by sharply kicking the gate near the lock and breaking it open with a deafening crash, and Louis could have killed him in that split second if it wasn’t for Jenner in his arms. “What the fuck is your problem, huh? Humans aren’t out there making a fucking mess right now, do you want to bring them all down on our heads?” he asked in regards to the Roman predators, puffing his chest out and hissing at the English Elder with absolutely no class or sense of propriety. “You wanna piss me off, fine, but you can do that without endangering us all,” he spat, stomping through the forcibly opened gate while his group followed guardedly.

“Would you calm down? They’re not gonna come here because of one simple noise,” Harlock shot down, bouncing Jenner in his hold to get a better grip and quickening his pace to match the King’s. “I have a fucking nose, you know—there’s no one around we need to be worried about.

“How stupid _are_ you?” Louis responded coldly, making a twirling motion with his hand in the air. “You have a nose, but they have ears. Ears are strong indicators, and that sound probably echoed throughout the entire town. Just be fucking careful,” he whisper-shouted, jabbing his finger to the back of the group to put him behind everyone while he independently took the duty of leader. Best to have the two eldest at the front and back in case of sneak attacks.

“We’re not done yet,” Harlock hissed, walking backward and handing Jenner off to William halfway down so the warlock wouldn’t come in harm’s way if they were suddenly advanced on from behind. He then took up the rear and glared daggers into the back of Louis’ head for sport, imagining the kind of bruises he’d be able to leave with his fists next time they fought. Don’t get him wrong, he loves Louis like a brother—but that did nothing to bar his fury. If anything, it made it stronger.

Louis flanked them all against the wall of the neighboring building of unknown variety and inched forward to peek out to the street, looking both ways at the zombie-like humans in their debatable state of consciousness. It was eerie to say the very least—they were speaking amongst themselves, entering shops that were run by dazed cashiers, and eating food on outside benches that dotted the out-of-place strip mall, but they were doing it...deadly. Emptily. Blandly and monotonously. Louis couldn't wait to reverse this, but he wouldn't waste his time on the people of Trastevere.

“Alright, it's now or never,” he muttered to Erakus who was directly behind him, sweeping around the corner and leading his single file line of ducks down the sidewalk. Humans they encountered barely even moved out of the way, so Louis had to physically guide them elsewhere with a push to their shoulders, and the act didn't feel all that great. Felt invasive.

Louis kept most of his attention on the radar of the widespread lures, concentrating on their epicenters to affirm they weren't walking right towards one. Without being under a lure’s claws, it was especially trying and difficult to pinpoint them, a natural happenstance that was probably for a vampires’ safety against their own kind. Johnny was locked in near constant eye contact with Liam so the immortal could overpower the vague and aimless lure, and Jenner was a hard egg to crack in general—those two being the only ones in danger of takeover gave Louis some relief. A mere one worry less from his bottomless basket.

Erakus whispered that they should really just book it, and though Louis was wary of attracting attention, it was true that they were in a sea of zombies who wouldn't particularly mind, so he accepted, and then they were off.

They tore through the streets and alleyways of Trastevere in a vague direction of north, frequently bypassing crowds of humans with heads in clouds and trying not to knock them over in the process. They came upon the River Tiber earlier than expected and crossed a bridge that arched over it, but that was also the time when an Elder was detected not too far away from them. And Louis knew his scent. “Over here,” he whispered, herding his group across the end of the bridge and pointing them to a small garden with bushy trees outside a cafe.

They all leapt into it and hunkered down upon Louis’ motioned request, but they also knew it was useless to visibly hide when they couldn't erase their scents. As if on cue, the Elder predator called out, his sneering voice cutting through the air like a noxious gas. “What are you doing out of your cage, Alexander? I know it’s you.”

Louis huffed irritably and checked the faces of his group, beckoning Harlock, Zayn, and Erakus over to him because Liam still needed to tend to Johnny, and likely wouldn’t leave him unless he absolutely had to. The three others scooted forward and awaited Louis’ orders, all four getting interrupted by another taunt.

“Why don’t you come out, Alexander? Or do you want me to find you?”

“Ahh _shit_ ,” Louis cursed in defeat, looking around over the brush and ducking back down to speak hushedly to Harlock, Zayn, and Erakus. “You three be ready, alright? For anything; I may need help with this one,” he warned, only unveiling himself when he got triple nods of diligence. “Fancy seeing you here, Michael,” he greeted to empty air down the street, said atmosphere filling itself when the expected Michael rounded the corner and approached him with a devious smirk.

“The very same to you,” he reciprocated, crossing his arms in contemplation as he gazed at the recovered and full-strength vision of the old King. “Who let you out?” he asked, not feeling as confident as he had seconds prior because Alexander worrisomely wasn’t held down by any sort of enhanced metal.  

“Oh, you haven’t been down there since, have you? I let myself out,” Louis said, raising his eyebrows at Michael’s reactive scoff in doubt.

“Auron would never let you get away,” he reasoned, widening his eyes when Alexander took wide strides up to him and stopped just before their chests would crash together.

“ _Auron_ isn’t himself right now, Michael. Nobody is down there anymore. They left,” he informed to the skeptical Elder, already mapping out the answers to the questions he knew were coming.  

“What in the bloody hell are you talking about?” Michael asked in confusion, actually setting aside all other possible behaviors and actions to get this claim unfolded. “Azazel and Auron wouldn’t ever let someone escape, and it was impossible for you to in your position. Besides, where would you have even come from? There’s a group of us at the entrance—”

“First off, it was Azazel’s choice, and we came from Trastevere. The Santa Maria,” Louis said quickly, anxious to get to the important bits versus the logistics.

“There’s an _entrance_ in the _Santa Maria_?” Michael gasped, blindsided by something so crucial he for some reason hadn’t ever known.

“Would you focus here!” Louis snapped, shoving him in the chest and ignoring his automatic hiss. “Azazel is out there somewhere controlling the Aelius twins like fucking dolls, and he’s turned the three of them into a happy, fully functioning trinity!” he said urgently, watching the gears turn above Michael’s head while his expression passed through just about every emotion Louis could think of.

“You mean coexist with Hadrian? Auron would never agree to—”

“Auron didn’t have a fucking choice, you imbecile! By the time Azazel was done with him, Auron didn’t even know who I was. Neither of them did. They forgot _everything_ , and it was all Azazel’s doing. Are you fucking understanding me yet?” he barked, trying to keep his voice down because he didn’t need Michael’s evil companions to be drawn to a blaring argument.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Michael asked before all else, understandably untrusting of Alexander when his very identity was taken into account. Alexander the Great. No one should ever trust someone who’s been around so long.

“You said so yourself that Auron wouldn’t ever let me go. My being here should be proof enough that they’re gone,” he reasoned logically, grabbing Michael’s shoulders and waiting until the Elder’s eyes were locked onto his. “Michael. We’re natural enemies and have been for centuries. But I am not lying to you. The twins. Are together. Azazel. Took them,” he stated firmly, blasting the honesty through his mouth and eyes until Michael’s belief flashed in his own pupils.

“I gotta go,” Michael said, turning in some random direction until Alexander paused him with his tone.

“What the—you’re not going to try and kill me?” he challenged, outstretching his arms to open himself up as a willing participant.

“I know you think it does, but the world does not revolve around you, Aléxandros ho Mégas. There are bigger and more important things than just your existence. Auron is my _maker_. He’s everything to me—and this is something he never would have wanted, so I have to find him,” he said, halting himself this time to shoot Alexander a loaded look filled with both approval and incredulity. “Not mentioning you’re at full strength and could destroy me if I tried, do you really think I can’t smell the rabbits hiding in those bushes?” he laughed, shaking his head at the whole situation.

“Where will you go?” Louis asked out of curiosity, wondering if Michael had some kind of idea that Louis himself would never be able to guess.

“None of your business. I have some ideas, but don’t go thinking we’re on the same side now. I’ll find him myself,” he vowed, glowering at Alexander when he cackled in response.

“And do what?” Louis guffawed, reeling his laughter back into his lungs and clutching at his stomach as he waved Michael off. “You know what, nevermind. Go. Good fucking luck getting through Azazel. I’m rooting for you,” he said, turning on his heel and snapping at his group to leave the useless cover of shrubbery.

“Well what are _you_ going to do?” Michael bit back to him, seriously doubting that he had any sort of better plan.

“It’s none of your business,” Louixander said with a saucy wink, genuinely smiling at Michael’s eyeroll that almost felt...friendly.

“There aren’t many places to hide out here, Alexander. We’re kind of everywhere,” he warned as if the group had no clue, taking steps backward to alert his imminent departure.

“But look at all these bushes,” Louis argued sarcastically, a final snort from Michael filtering through the area until the whoosh of wind from his retreat took it over.

“That went shockingly well,” Harlock quipped as he came up behind Louis, placing his bent elbow on the King’s shoulder as they stared at the empty space that had once held Auron’s closest and right-hand vampire.

Louis glanced down at the arm dangling over his shoulder and looked up at its owner, Harlock’s single eye flicking down to meet his gaze. “You’re touching me without hurting me. Does this mean I’m forgiven?” he asked, catching the fleeting moment of irritation before the lines of the immortal’s face smoothed back out.

“Yeah for now. This is too big a quest to be fighting through,” Harlock said with a smirk, the group collectively shaking off their stress and gearing up to keep running, northwest-bound to traverse Switzerland, France, the fucking English Channel, and England itself respectively before reaching Scotland; and all this without experiencing a side effect of death. You’d mend ties too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jenner just haaaaad to open the book. Honestly, I would too. Hope you love Cináed like I do, and the next time you see Michael is going to be ridiculous. I haven't been in the best mood lately, so I apologize if it feels like I'm ghosting, I'm really not trying to. I'm still here. But things are taking me quite a bit longer to do. Apologiiiiies <3


	11. One Small Second

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My references are crimes, and I'm sorry. You'll find out what I mean in France. Announcement at the bottom of this chapter. Couple actually. For now, enjoy.

Harry hadn’t been this bored since he was a child stuck listening to his parents’ political mumbo-jumbo with Trajan and his advisors. He used to consult his imaginary friends in times like that—Auron was obviously in line for the throne, so even as young as they’d been, he’d had to pay attention to every detail of those meetings; but Hadrian hadn't _ever_ had to, so he'd dwelled inside his overactive mind for hours at a time just to escape the unbearable boredom.

This setting, sitting in a throne beside his brother’s in the ballroom of the Corvin Castle in Hunedoara, Romania, joined by fifty of the finest freedom fighters in the country while they rambled on and on about Auron’s worldly plans...well, this was a lot like that.

After he and Auron, with Azazel as company, had desecrated that tiny mountain town, Auron had searched the grounds for a working telephone so he could contact some of his Romanian vampires. When one of his favourites answered, they’d decided to meet in the Corvin Castle where some of the Elders had been staying, and by the time they’d showed up to the extravagant manor, it was already a full house. Everyone had called everyone, and now here they are. In a sodding meeting from his childhood.

“So when do we ease them out of the lure?” a random and heavily-accented vampire asked, his standing position and journalist-esque facial expression making him look like he should have a notepad and a pen in his hands.

“When we get _everything_ back up to speed,” Auron informed, twirling a lock of hair around his finger while he kicked his legs up to sit sideways across the throne. “We tore everything down, now we need to focus on building it back up. Find the electricians, the food industry workers, CEO’s of the biggest corporations, the radio broadcasters and the little media ants. Anyone and everyone who made the world run before, we need them back doing their jobs. When the system is revived, and _only_ then, can we start installing fear rather than hypnosis,” he said, watching the chorus of diligent nods among his loyal audience.

Harry turned his gaze to the gothic rib-vault ceiling above him in marbled colours of créme and chestnut, trailing his eyes along its spiderweb layers and down the sharp, octagonal pillars they bled into. The pillars themselves were decorated with dark wine coloured banners, the closest of which having some type of bird on a stick embroidered to it, and he felt overly judgmental by thinking so, but it really didn’t fit in. There were windows along the sides of the room, but they were all covered with thick curtains of a similar red shade, and the double doors at the end were of dark brown wood and black iron framing. The smooth surface of hard stone in the ballroom was abundant, encompassing the floor, walls, and ceiling, and if he didn’t know they were in Romania, he’d say it was Greece.

 _Greece,_ he thought to himself, that particular place sparking a raw emotion of unknown origin and reason. _Who do I know from Greece? Or was it Macedon…_

“What do we do about the Guardians?” another vampire asked, bringing Hadrian out of his funk to pretend to listen.

“Nothing. Kill them when you see them, but nothing more. They’re laughably outnumbered, and breaking lures in scarcely populated areas to begin with isn’t exactly a threat is it?” Auron snorted, having not devoted even a minute to worrying about the Guardians because they would never win now—it was far too late. They could cause all the tiny uproars they wanted, they still didn’t stand a chance.

“Yes Sir,” the same vampire nodded, taking a seat on his pew and handing any other questions off to whomever had one to ask.

Hadrian fought not to roll his eyes and instead locked them onto a pretty human boy standing against the far right wall, the doll waiting patiently to be chosen by someone who would want him. He quietly whistled to get his attention and smiled when the boy’s blue eyes flew over to him in shock, then beckoning him with a subtle finger so he wouldn’t make a scene.

The boy shuffled over nervously, unsure if now was actually a good time for something like this, but the twin seemed confident in his decision, so he sped up his pace, climbing the five steps to the thrones and coming to a stop beside his.

“Come here,” Hadrian whispered, spreading his legs while he patted a thigh, wrapping his arms around the blonde boy when he sat down and nuzzling his rose-scented neck. “Such a pretty thing,” he murmured, causing a ripple of shivers to run down the human’s spine in a violent swoon.

“And the population control?” a gruff voice called out, the question making Auron stop and think on it for a while to find the best response.

“I think it’s okay for now. Keep disposing of the useless humans, though. Leave them in the streets—that will help with the fear factor when we release the control,” he chuckled darkly, a wave of arousal distracting him from his collected demeanor when the human in Hadrian’s clutches moaned from the heaven of his fangs. _You never did know the meaning of propriety,_ he chided to his lascivious brother, clapping his hands together to turn the audience’s wandering eyes back onto him.

“And of the banks?” another asked with a not-so-subtle throat clearing, obviously striving to ignore the pleasurable act unfolding a mere metre away from the leader twin.

“Twenty a bank. _Maximum_. I know we all love our fair share of beautiful humans, but there are banks all over the place, and we can’t keep too many for ourselves. Just enough to sustain the Elders. Do try not to kill them,” he urged, his eyes narrowing to slits as the pitch of the intoxicated human to his right grew higher and higher.

“Very well,” the vampire agreed, wishing that budget had turned out to be more, but he wouldn’t fight a direct order.

“And what of Alexander? Should we still be looking for him?” a grey-haired immortal inquired, gulping in shock when both brothers jolted like they’d been shot.

Hadrian ripped his teeth out of his human and roughly shoved him off his lap as he stood, whipping around to face his brother who had simultaneously risen from his own chair. Their eyes were wide and full of oddly specific confusion, and their hands lifted as sluggishly as a sunrise to point at each other with gaping jaws.

_Alexander...the Great…?_

All at once, they saw the face of Alexander in their thoughts, and all at once, Azazel’s booming voice cracked through the air like thunder, stilting any mental progress they’d begun to make.

“Forget about Alexander!” Azazel commanded of the entire room, stretching his lure out to every creature present and cementing the order into their impressionable minds. “Forget all about him. He’s not a problem,” he stated, slinking back into his little corner as the fog settled in. He’d already been administering a slight amount of lure to convince everyone that the Aelius twins being together was unquestionably normal, and he was getting decently tired of all this compulsion, but not too tired to allow a dire lapse like that. Alexander, even just the mere memory of him, could bring this entire operation down to a pile of rubble, and he couldn’t let that happen.

The twins blinked rapidly at their curious position (pointing to each other for no discernable reason), and their frowns molded back into those loving smiles they gave only to each other, Hadrian ditching his earlier fun and squeezing in next to Auron on his throne while the room’s topics picked up where they’d left off.  

Hadrian tuned it all out again and chose to focus on the vibrations of his brother’s speech patterns from his chest rather than the actual words themselves, the sensation an all too soothing one that threatened to put him right to sleep if he wasn’t careful.

“And one more thing,” Auron said, his tone being the only thing to perk Hadrian upright and regard him with eager interest. “We need to make a television broadcast. If possible, to all of Europe. I’ve got a little message for both our side and our enemies. Can you work on making this happen tonight?” he asked the vampires of the room, several immortals standing with raised arms that said they could secure a plan in the matter of an hour. “Good, thank you. Adjourned,” he announced, waving everyone off and grinning when they ran out as though the building was on fire.

“Television. You want to be on television,” Hadrian chuckled, sighing as he leaned back into his older brother and crossed one leg over the other.

“We always deserved the silver screen—but this will have to do,” Auron said with a seriousness that Hadrian would never fall for, both of them erupting into short bouts of giggles.

“That was all nicely put, Auron. Consistently am I blown away by the way you can control a crowd,” Azazel came up to praise, his eyes twinkling as he gazed down at his twins on their shared seat.

“Mindless insects, the lot of them,” Auron brushed off, considering them nothing more than his eyes, ears, and noses.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to contribute here, Auree,” Hadrian noted, spinning around to lie across the chair with Auron as a pillow. “You seem to be managing the world just fine on your own.”

“Complete nonsense,” Auron scoffed, guiding Hadrian off the chair so they could go explore together or something similar while they awaited the return of their puppets. “The world would be empty to rule on my own. What world would there even be to rule without you?” he challenged, striking out and smacking the back of his brother’s head for being so dense.

“Ach!” Hadrian hissed, rubbing his stinging scalp and darting out to try and land a kick on Auron’s kneecap—he evaded, but this battle was not over. He’d drop his guard at some point, and when he did…

 

~~~

 

They were in France, Louis knew that much. Somewhere in eastern France at nearly two in the morning, having not made too much progress because unavoidable fights had occurred with the routine trio of Elder predators, sometimes more, and sometimes it took a while to win. They always did, though.

The streets of France continued to astound Louis with how oddly lively they were, all things considered. The sleep schedule of all humans had completely reversed, so the night life was more crowded than it had been in all of history. Cars were still unused and sitting abandoned in the clogged roadways, so all mortal traveling was done on foot, and the journeys themselves made no sense.

The humans carried shopping bags they'd clearly had in their hands when this catastrophe struck, and they gave off the _illusion_ of having places to go, but it wasn't real. These flocks of thoughtless birds were undeniably directionless, ambling to and fro impulsively in a fragmented setting of autopilot. _Never thought the apocalypse would happen quite like this,_ he laughed internally, refocusing his musings on their unknown location.

If Louis had to peg it, he'd say they were at least in the northeastern quadrant of the country, but he couldn't say that for sure—and Martin was no help. Martin, for all his assumed expertise regarding everything French, was apparently only good for impassioned storytelling, and frequently pointing at things he thought his attentive lover would be interested in while he mourned over the ‘good old days.’

Louis had been forced to not only shush Martin, but also physically smack him when he got too loud and boisterous about his home country, and all those actions had now happened too many sodding times for Louis to maintain any exterior of patience and understanding. There would come a day for sightseeing—when they could travel the world in peace and relative safety—but it was not this day.

Martin was currently pointing out a propaganda poster tacked to a streetlight post across the road that read “Le Rayonnement Français” and explaining that France’s mission in the world had always been enlightening other nations to follow their superior way of life; that they'd always strove to save the world leading by example of how a nation should be—because they had the best of everything and were envied by the entire world for their cultural supremacy: “ _Savoir-vivre.”_

 _"_ That's your imagination, Martin,” Louis snorted, actually apologizing to a human he'd accidentally walked into when he looked over his shoulder. “The whole world does not want to be France, you French only _think_ it does,” he muttered, halting his group to sniff out the closest predator and figure out a way around them.

“Pardon?” Martin begged with a dripping French accent, his every feather bristled like an agitated ostrich. “Take a look at our art, cuisine and culture, the music, the very morals and values of our people—do you mean to tell me these are not envious qualities?” he challenged heatedly, fully supported by the agreeable Tanner who threw his arms around the old butler while they strolled.

“I'm not going to commend France for nice material things and virtuous notions when your economy and government keep failing,” Louis sighed, truthfully having the softest spot imaginable for the great country in his aching heart. That was a significant reason why he wouldn't budge on the matter—France was as bittersweet and painful for him as it was exquisite.

“ _Va te faire foutre, enculé_ ,” Martin bit under his breath, Harlock snorting and nearly choking behind him because he knew what that meant.

Louis whipped around in a flash, rage written all over his features as he snatched Martin around the throat and hissed in his anxious face. “That was fucking rude,” he snapped, lifting the contrite butler off the ground via neck and only just rearing back to throw him against the nearest empty taxi when the televisions in the window of the electronics shop they were outside of starting going haywire.

All heads turned to their static and buzzing conditions, wincing at the high-pitched whine of their chattering signal attempts as some broadcast valiantly pushed through the airwaves. Louis’ hand on Martin’s throat grew subconsciously tighter as an eerie feeling crept into his heart. It wasn't as though he was expecting it, but really...who does he know with assumed control of the signal towers who would love to make an announcement to the world?

In a second, the screens snapped into clear picture, and Louis dropped Martin onto the ground like a sack of potatoes—it was Auron and Hadrian.

“ _Holy shit_!” Zayn gasped, a few other similar expletives reverberating through the group before Louis hissed for utter silence. He inched to the window and stood eye-level with a particular television, tuning his ears into the unbelievable sound filtering through the glass: Auron’s voice.

“Immortals of Europe!” Auron greeted with a smile, his mirror image directly beside him giving an identical smirk that curdled Louis’ blood. They looked to be in some radio tower, and Louis had no idea where it could be, but to be fair, that part didn't matter much.

“To my own, I, Bastion, am insurmountably proud of you all, and what we have accomplished together. Look at the world we have created! A haven to our kind—a place wherein we are _free_ —and it wouldn't have happened without your hard work and sacrifice. You saved our kind; brought us forever out of the shadows; and you will be heavily rewarded for your efforts,” he announced with a sickening grin, seeming to stare right at Louis’ group as he said it, as though the television screen was just a thin pane of glass between them.

“To the resistance, you must know it's futile,” Hadrian began with a dark and devious chuckle, every member of his family holding back sobs to hear who he had become. Louis remained stone-faced and guarded from the pain, putting his all into seeing Hadrian as nothing more than an enemy. Tough gig, that.

“All who oppose us will be chopped down like trees; the fate of the ignorant is grim,” Hadrian continued, his voice deep and heavy with malice, just like his brother's. Never had the Aeliuses been more inseparable of twins to Louis than they were at this moment—it was disgusting.

“But to the doomed, we offer an alternative,” Hadrian crooned, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow into the camera. “Join us,” he stated.

Louis let out a short and breathy laugh from his nostrils, wholly unimpressed with this stereotypical theme of nefarious villainy. _Join you? This is such a trope._

“Surrender your pitiful selves to our glorious movement, and you will be spared. But if you will not, know that I will find you. Every last one of you. And I will personally rip you limb from limb,” he threatened, his green eyes piercing Louis’ in a way the real Hadrian would never be capable of. “Choose wisely—the clock is ticking,” he stated, glancing over to Auron when the eldest shot him with a fond and prideful expression, the two gandering at each other like incestual lovers for one quick second before the television reverted to its former black and white static thrum.

No one uttered a single word when the broadcast ended, but Louis knew all eyes were on him. He'd instinctively reached out as the twins disappeared and slapped his palm against the glass of the shop, as though he might stop them from leaving if he did so, and now it was awkward. He snarled in fury and reared his hand back as he curled it into a fist, clashing through the glass with a sharp cry as it shattered like an icy ripple from the impact.

He then hopped up onto the ledge that balanced the stands of televisions and ragefully shoved them all from their wobbling podiums, kicking and hurling the sets down to the inside floor without stopping until every last one was destroyed. It didn't feel like enough—not _nearly_ enough—but he forced himself to end the destruction there, stomping further into the store and heading straight for the counter where cigarettes lined the shelves behind the stupidly complacent cashier.

He swung his body over the counter and knocked the dazed human aside, snatching the first pack he saw—light blue _Gauloises_ with a wingéd helmet on its front—along with a silver Zippo from the human’s apron pocket, and then casually used the front door to exit. His group watched with speechless gawks as he calmly opened the stolen pack and retrieved a single smoke from its grouping of nineteen (an odd number), and tossed it between his teeth.

He then sparked the wick of the lighter and held it to the end, puffing twice to get it going before clapping the metal lighter closed and breathing in his first therapeutic drag. He held it in his lungs for much longer than necessary and then blew it out with an audible sigh, a smaller-than-usual plume of smoke exiting his lips from the duration of its intake. “We need to get to the coast by sunrise,” he blurted, shocking everyone because they'd probably anticipated his first words to be in relevance to the twins’ unexpected television debut.

Martin nodded sharply—maybe even desperately—to show his unfaltering cooperation to the King, spinning around and hopping on top of a dumpster to clamber up on the roof for an optimum view.

Niall came up behind Louis and slid a hand down his right arm, wordlessly linking their fingers together to simply _be there_ —like no one else could. Louis let him. “I want to go up the eastern border of England to Scotland. I mean _right_ on the cusp; it's our best bet. Where in France is directly across from the east coast?” he asked the studious Martin, grounded by the frequent squeezes and rubs from Niall’s fingers.

“Uh, that...that would be Dunkirk,” Martin said surely, only a small pause to make sure he was thinking of the right beach. “That way,” he said with his arm stretched out to the north, making Louis take a brief moment of close-eyed meditation so he wouldn't hit him.

“Can you take us there?” Louis asked bluntly, needing to know they could land _there_ and not just some other random beach in the—yes, he understands— _the bloody north!_

“To Dunkirk?” Martin inquired only to fill the air because he knew what Louis had meant, looking back and forth between the distant horizon and the irritated King with an ever-growing smile of excitement. What a very French place to go. “Yeah, I think I can manage that.”

 

~~~

 

“I can't sleep,” Hadrian muttered into the darkness as he shifted restlessly atop their bed—a bed which had been moved to the castle’s lower levels from a bedroom near the top. He was drowning in the soft, plushy mattress and mountain of blankets, cocooned in the safe and protective arms of Auron, so it _should_ have been easy to drift off—but it wasn't. His mind hung heavily under the searing talons of doubt, and there was no escaping it.

“I can tell,” Auron replied groggily right behind his ear, tone painted in both amusement and sympathy.

“What? How, what do you mean?” Hadrian asked, having not moved from his spot the entire time up to speaking.

“You keep sighing,” Auron informed, surprised his account seemed to shock his brother. Had he really not realized he'd been dramatically sighing once every two minutes?

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Hadrian laughed, holding a hand over his grin. “Wasn't my intention.”

“Mmm...do you want me to put you to sleep? ‘Cuz I can,” Auron noted, not needing to explain that a bite from his fangs could knock his brother out if he wanted it.

“I don't really wanna sleep in general, to be honest,” Hadrian grumbled, unknowingly cracking Auron’s eyes open for the first time in the conversation.

“Why not?” Auron inquired curiously, having not anticipated an answer such as that.

“Because of that dream I had—the one where we hated each other—I don't wanna have that again,” Hadrian confessed, thinking himself a bit of a pansy for it but feeling no shame in the admittance; his brother was a being he could always pour his heart out to without fear of judgment. That was how they worked.

“What makes you think you _would_ have it again?” Auron philosophized, digging down to unlock Hadrian’s inner thoughts and hopefully offer solace.

“I don't know for sure, but...I guess I'm just scared regardless,” Hadrian shrugged, letting himself get pulled in closer by his concerned twin.

“Hayway,” Auron cooed, resting his forehead against the back of Hadrian’s neck after pushing his hair out of the way. “You need rest, though. Can't be deprived; we have a lot of shit to do,” he said matter-of-factly, trying his hand at a stern approach and seeing what it would do.

“Well you're not sleeping either,” Hadrian pointed out, turning the tables to defend himself.

“Yeah,” Auron snorted, “because every time I got close, you would _sigh_ ,” he accused, tickling his brother’s side in a quick but merciless attack.

“Sorry!” Hadrian cried through his giggles, his laughter fading out after Auron released him from the lighthearted torture.

“Listen, Hayway...even if you _do_ have this dream, and you go through Hades’ lair all day, you'll still wake up here with me. You're not really going anywhere, okay? You'll be right here,” he soothed, now convinced this was the route he'd need to take for success. “And we won't know unless we try,” he added for good measure, smiling at Hadrian’s reluctant sigh of acceptance.

“Okay...you can bite me now,” Hadrian relented flippantly, furrowing his eyebrows when Auron barked out a jarring laugh. “What?”

“Oh, I can, can I?” Auron snickered, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose before returning the hand to Hadrian’s arm. “Are you actually worried about this dream, or did you just want my endorphins?” he asked disapprovingly, his bemusement fueled by Hadrian’s guilty chuckle.

“Maybe a hefty amount of both,” Hadrian admitted fearlessly, glancing over his shoulder at the fraction of Auron’s frame he could see. “Will you give them to me regardless?”

“Of course I will, you lummox, they belong to you anyway,” Auron muttered, extending his fangs and carefully sinking them down into Hadrian’s greedy neck, hissing slowly and quietly to keep the peace as he worked his endorphins into his brother’s bloodstream.

Hadrian hummed in bliss and let the feeling carry him off into the ethereal realm of unconsciousness, his last cognizant thought being that he kind of wished Auron had bitten rougher than that.

Auron was careful to remove his fangs, retracting them languidly so he wouldn't disrupt the sleep Hadrian had assumedly succumbed to. Once he could, he leaned over to peer down at Hadrian’s sleeping face, confirming for himself it had absolutely worked and then snuggling in against him to chase his own shut-eye. “Goodnight, little Hayway,” he whispered into his brother’s hair, closing his already drooping eyelids and reveling in the fact that an imminent sigh wouldn't jar him back into full alertness this time. _Wonder what my dreams will have in store for me..._

 

_~~~_

 

“Yeah, we saw it,” Liam said into the phone, the whole group crowded into the backroom of a seafood restaurant. A pretty nice one at that, though no one was here...apparently fine dining didn't find its way into the schedules of zombies.

“I don't actually...know?” he added unsurely, looking pleadingly to Louis, who groaned and snatched the telephone from Liam’s outstretched hand.

“Yeah,” Louis said into the receiver, turned off from the idea of asking how the English weather was at the moment.

“Aléxandros, _what_ happened?” Julius’s deep voice implored, likely standing in a triangle with Brutus (sorry, _Bernard_ ) and ‘Petra’ as they listened in.

“Azazel has Hadrian and Auron in a lure. They're just as braindead as the humans for the time being, and we need to get to Scotland to find Azazel’s brother and work out how to erase this,” he said concisely, tuning out the hushed whispers of the polyamorous couple on the other line.

“Where are you?” Julius broke their debate to ask.

“Just south of Dunkirk, France. Straight shot to...southeast English border,” he said with an unseen shrug to them, having not spent enough time in England to know every coastal town and city. Not to mention names of places always change like hairstyles over time.

“You'll wanna get here further north than the bottom corner. Across from Dunkirk, that would be Felixstowe, right?” he asked to his company, confirmed by two mirrored ‘uh-huh’s. “You need a boat from Dunkirk to Felixstowe. Got it. We can do that for you,” he said, snapping his fingers for something Louis couldn’t see.

Louis was actually startled to hear that statement; he’d known Julius would probably come in handy once in the UK, and he’d fiddled around with the idea of having him help with Scotland, but never for a second did he think they’d get assistance getting to England to begin with. He had indeed wondered what they would do to cross the channel, and he’d decided they’d just steal some boat to sail with (without any of them particularly knowing how to work them), but to have all this lifted off his chest was like a gift from Zeus. “You’d do that?”

“What? Of course we will. I have connections, Alexander. I can have a ferry off the coast of Dunkirk by dusk tomorrow night,” Julius stated, almost sounding apologetic that he couldn’t offer relief right this very moment—it was too close to daylight for any more actions, though, and Louis was aware of that. “ _But_ ,” he continued somberly, “I _can’t_ guarantee that this will all happen safely...or without enemy interruptions,” he warned, wishing not to instill the hope of success where it wasn't destined.

“That’s perfectly fine, Julius, I understand the risks. We can hang on until tomorrow evening, and we'll face whatever trials may come,” he assured bravely, looking around at his haggard group and further proving his point to himself—they looked like shit, but they could fight. “We'll keep a weathered eye on the horizon,” he vowed, repeatedly thanking Julius for his selfless decision and then dropping the phone line when the time came.

“Better get as close to the beach as possible,” Harlock said grudgingly, afraid of the ominous number of enemies that would be crawling along the outer edges of France. Hopefully not too many or they'd need a plan B—thing is, there was no plan B. This _had_ to work.

“Off we go,” Louis agreed, leading his group out through the back door and following his sensitive nose to the bitter aroma of the ocean.

 

\---

 

They had actually managed to make it all the way to Dunkirk without a catastrophe, and that was something Louis would always ponder over. The buildings had begun to lessen in density the closer to the beach they got, and they'd quickly holed up in a tavern hut with a front door that opened right out to the open sand. It was perfect.

“Wish I could have booze,” Erakus grumbled as he ogled the shelves of bottles they passed on their way to find the basement.

“Erakus, had you lived more of your life as a human, you'd've died from an alcohol-related tragedy before your thirties,” Elijah chuckled, elbowing his brother after receiving an undeserving smack to the upper arm.

“Not true!” Erakus vehemently protested, looking back to his parents for moral support.

“It's very true, Era. You had a drinking problem—we all saw it,” William confirmed, his wife tutting her tongue in equal disapproval.

“Niko?” Erakus begged, praying that his little brother would come to his rescue.

“Well I certainly couldn't keep up with you,” Niko noted, cowering away from the affronted squeal Erakus threw in his direction. “I mean don't you remember that night I tried? _I_ almost died,” he reasoned, his memories taking him back to that fateful night he'd overdrunk himself and wound up ill for an entire week just from matching his older brother’s pace downing gulps of Koskenkorva.

“Not my fault you're a lightweight,” Erakus grumbled, ignoring Marley’s highly amused giggle so he wouldn't take out his annoyance on him.

“Here it is,” Louis said, kicking the wayward tavern owner or manager’s desk across the floor to unveil the trapdoor beneath it.

Stacey lifted it up for him and the group hopped down the stairs, Louis pulling a string at the bottom of the steps that made three harshly buzzing lightbulbs without covers flicker on. The basement had a table in the middle framed by boxes for walls that stacked to the ceiling, and said table was covered in ashtrays, paper and coin francs alike, matches, dice, four-suit playing cards, ale and liquor cans and bottles, and toppled-over poker chips.

“Looks like break time was always quite the party,” Jet snorted, leading Stacey to the table and sitting them both down across from each other, promptly shuffling the mess of cards to begin some game that Louis lacked the attention span to partake in.

The Sparrows with Marley joined the pair at the table, setting up metal folding chairs and squeezing themselves into open spots to join the loud and talkative festivities, and the rest took seats on the floor in the corner of the dim room. Louis had to bite back an angry hiss when every couple selfishly showcased themselves as one, leaving Louis painfully left out by comparison.

To explain, Harlock had situated himself against the tall boxes with Jenner in-between his legs and leaned onto his chest, and the same position was replicated by Liam and Johnny, Martin and Tanner, and Zayn and Niall. But Louis didn’t have that. Louis felt the contrast of the coarse _wood_ behind his back more clearly than he felt his own existence. His solitude had never been more clear.

If he really tried, Louis could almost sense the soft and comforting chest of Hadrian pressed against his back; the strong thighs running down his sides that he would idly rest his elbows on; the smooth and pale arms draped affectionately across his collarbones; the phantom rubs of his hands and thumbs on his upper arms; the pokes of the Roman’s curly hair in his ears when he leaned in to pepper Louis’ face with little kisses and nuzzles. But Hadrian wasn’t here. Louis was cold, dead, and alone. It didn’t matter that this basement was filled with more creatures than it probably ever had been before...he was _alone_. And he missed Harry Styles so goddamn fucking much.

“Louis,” Niall breathed in sympathy, heads turning to the King that hadn’t previously regarded him yet.

“Oh Louis,” Jenner whined, scooting away from the comfort of Harlock to approach his emptily crying brother.

Louis hadn’t even known the tears had fallen—he could feel nothing. That haunting sensation of being hollow and having absolutely no substance had taken him over again, and his gaze drilled down into the floorboards between his legs. He pulled his knees into his chest and dropped his forehead onto his knees, making valiant attempts to ignore everyone’s concerns, but he was on thin ice. Or maybe he _was_ the thin ice—and his family was unintentionally stomping all over him.

“I’m so sorry, Louis,” Niall sniffed, reaching out and curling his fingers around Louis’ quivering forearm, finally unleashing the comforts he’d kept to himself since finding Louis on his knees staring into space in those Roman tunnels. “I’m so fucking sorry—I know you miss him...this never should have happened, and I still can’t believe it did,” he mourned, sending a batch of tears straight into Zayn’s eyes as the older vampire let himself really feel it too. “We’re here for you, Louis. We love you so much.”

“If we’d only gotten there sooner,” Harlock grunted, his head slumped back against the boxes of bottles in defeat.

Louis snorted but later realized he’d only done it in his head, still covered by an impenetrable exoskeleton he’d built to protect himself. Harlock was presumptuous to assume he’d have been able to do anything even if he’d arrived _days_ early—he had no idea what Azazel was really like. Max wasn’t even in the same category. Similar, yes, and clearly reserved, but...Azazel was something else.

“Don’t,” Martin said to Harlock to quell his self-directed blame, shaking his head as Harlock peered at him curiously. “It would not have helped. Auron and his vampires were a force to be reckoned with—one you can’t tell me you could overcome with sheer willpower—and I never personally saw Azazel, but…” he trailed, lost on how to continue when the point was so obvious already. Did it really need saying?

“But we had Max. Max is Azazel’s brother. Had he squared off with Azazel, who knows what would have happened? If we’d found him sooner, maybe…”

“What the _fuck_ is the point of 20/20 hindsight?” Louis snarled, shutting the entire room up from the volume of the unexpected outburst. “If you would have...come on! But you fucking didn’t, did you? Martin is right—it wouldn’t have mattered. Why would you mourn over what could have been? I’d prefer to focus on what _is_ , because that is what concerns us. I los—I lost Hadrian...he’s not c-coming back. I don’t want to hear about how he _could_ have been saved...how he _could_ be here right now…he’s fucking _not_ , okay? He’s _not_!” he sobbed, finally breaking down externally thanks to Harlock’s outrageous words.

“I’m sorry, Louis,” Harlock said sincerely, wallowing in his shame as Stacey, Martin, and Niall enveloped Louis in a loving embrace.

“We’ll get him back, baby,” Stacey pledged, letting her son cry into her shirt as she swept soft petting motions over his hair.

“What if Cináed won’t help?” Louis asked tightly, displaying his deepest worries of late to an audience he hadn’t planned on ever revealing them to. In his opinion, it was a valid concern—Cináed did not have to give a fuck about their problems, and if he didn’t, there wasn’t anything more they could do. Go crawling back to Max of course, that was obvious, but where would they go from there? Would Max have more siblings to consult?

“Louis, we have to cross bridges like that when we come to them. Not a moment before,” Jenner said, having lived by that motto his entire life because he knew he’d die someday and leave Harlock behind. Both lovers had been forced to grip that reality by that balls and drive it far away from their daily thoughts to maintain a happy relationship. They couldn’t dwell on the future or they’d miss the present. In this case, Louis couldn’t worry about the future because he’d get unmotivated and sloppy in his present deeds, and that could cost them all their lives.

“You don’t think it might be a little important?” Louis challenged stubbornly, shooing away the three vampires that coddled him to regain his idolized independence.

“It is,” Jenner agreed, huffing from the lack of space he had to fit through people until they subserviently moved out of the way. Once the path was cleared, he hopped over to plop himself down so close to Louis that their criss-crossed knees touched. “It is, okay? It’s extremely important. But you need to think about _now_ , and _only_ now,” he stressed, glaring at the defensive King until his demeanor began to crumble.

As it were, Louis did in fact comprehend the necessity for a sturdy forward outlook, and he nodded his head to accept the unordered order, slapping the tears from his face and taking a deep and revitalizing breath. “Fine. The spell,” he said to the wide-eyed warlock, bouncing back from his rut so quickly that now the only thing on his mind was the dream spell.

“Nu-uh,” Harlock laughed, moving to drag Jenner away from the ignorant King if need be.

“Harlock, I swear to Gaia, if you make one more move—” Jenner snapped, his vampire lover backing up with surrendered hands and a sour expression. “Give me the book,” he barked to Stacey, who looked like she’d rather be torn down the middle than go against Harlock’s wishes.

“Do it, Mom, or I will,” Louis warned throatily, his patience for anything difficult worn invisibly thin.

Stacey flittered off to retrieve her bag from the poker table, and the occupants of the abandoned game were staring warily at the upcoming event. They’d eavesdropped on everything since Louis had first broken down, and the sharp turn from lamenting lost love to dangerous spell-casting seemed a bit reckless and impulsive to their ears—but they wouldn’t be protesting the rash decision...they enjoyed their heads attached to their bodies.

“Get me a bowl,” Jenner said to whomever would take the initiative, delighted that Tanner soared over their enclosure and sprinted up the steps. He probably felt bad for not contributing much to the conversation and was now making up for it by being as helpful as possible. Good for him.

Tanner returned in seconds flat with an ideal metallic bowl in hand, directing everyone still sat away from the King and warlock duo to give them the room they needed to conduct the magical spell. The group scattered anyway out of self-preservation, and Tanner handed the bowl off to Jenner, who backed up a ways from Louis and set it down between them.

Stacey then returned with the book in her arms and shot Harlock a sad look before relinquishing it to Jenner’s grabby hands, and Jet immediately led her a safe distance from the pair so they could hunker down against the tornado that would probably rip this place apart.

“I need a lighter,” Jenner said next, looking specifically to Louis because he’d had one last.

Louis procured the lighter from his front pocket and held it out, dropping it into Jenner’s upturned palm because apparently the warlock didn’t want to touch his skin.

Jenner set the lighter down beside the bowl and slid the book closer to rest just before his folded legs, cracking his neck, back, and other smaller joints in preparation for the physically trying quest upon him. “The item of connection...show it to me,” Jenner said in an eerily mystical voice, magic already flocking to him in anticipation for its coveted freedom.

Louis hummed and patted around his pockets for the dagger, suddenly detecting its hardness in his back right one and swiftly pulling it out, glaring at its peculiar glint while he considered the atrocity it had been used for. He can’t ever describe the feelings associated with holding a weapon that had once pierced your brain matter, but if he had to put a single word to it, it would be...atypical.

Jenner’s heavily freckled hands darted out and slapped on either side of Louis’ face, and the King froze like a particularly confused statue, his ears instantly buzzing with a sound he’d never heard before, but it reminded him a lot of what the Hindus described as ‘om’—the sound of the universe. A deep, pulsing vibration that he could easily see stretching out from here to encompass the endless cosmos beyond them.

It was over surprisingly quick and Jenner silently asked for the knife next, gripping in a tight fist and lifting it to his own ear to listen to...what Louis could now guess was its ‘frequency’ of sorts. The warlock’s face was contorted in hard lines of concentration, and his left hand cut through the hair and slap back onto Louis’ forehead, studying both Louis’ and the dagger’s unique sounds and configuring how to match them. At least, that’s what Louis assumed—he was no expert (or even a novice) in these matters, but he had buckets of common sense and reasonable deduction, and thus was fairly confident in his theory.

Jenner returned the blade to Louis’ hand and alternatively snatched the lighter, meeting Louis’ eyes for the first time since asking him for the portable flame and taking a deep breath before speaking. “When I tell you to, slice your palm with that knife, and get your blood all over it. Then drop it in the bowl. You have to do it quick, because I’m not going to be able to say much after I start with this. You understand?” he asked, fueled by the serious nod of his vigilant receiving party.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Louis said patiently, holding the sharp edge of the dagger a centimetre above his skin, poised to slash the very millisecond he was instructed to. He had no idea what was going to happen to him, considering his mind would be under intrusive attack, but if he knew _anything_ about magic, it was that you didn’t fight it. You let it take you wherever it wanted. Magic was a rip current—you had to swim with it. If you tried to swim to the shore instead, you’d drown.

Jenner’s mental and ritualistic preparations were shown plainly on his face; his fear, his nerves, and his determination were all written in the most legible script Louis had ever seen. The group continued to back up, but Harlock fought it the whole time, throwing vexed elbows at Zayn and Liam when they urged him further and further away from his lover. Despite the side-drama afoot, Louis glued his eyes only to Jenner, watching the expands and contracts of his chest as he entered a meditative state Louis would never be able to step a toe in himself.

Like a gun sounding off for a race, Jenner’s eyes snapped open and he ‘ _hmph_ ’d at Louis to say “Now,” and Louis needed no other encouragement. He struck the blade against his hand with a force only a vampire could withstand and smeared the spilling black substance over it like a blanket, throwing its dripping form into the bowl as Jenner sparked the lighter alive.

Louis watched with curious eyes as Jenner physically transferred the flame from the wick to hover above his palm, a short gust of wind making the flame grow to the size of a baseball before he promptly hurled it into the bowl after the bloodied dagger. The flame then erupted into the size of a small tree and Louis reared back in startled fear, fleetingly noticing the fire seemed to be _above_ the knife rather than engulfing it, but his mind quickly devoted itself to other things.

Jenner spoke a single sure word in that mysterious language of his, the book jumped open to the exact page he needed, and then all hell broke loose. Violent winds instantaneously shattered the glass bottles in their boxes and sprayed the basement with a shower of stinging alcohol; the hanging lightbulbs blew roughly in all directions that made shadows dance in an animate flurry, and every object on the poker table shot through the air like it had been launched from a cannon. The group dodged all the airborne missiles they could, but there was too much to keep track of, and Louis promptly put their objectively hilarious struggles out of his mind, turning back to Jenner and watching the magical chaos unfold.

Jenner’s finger scoured down the page as he let the destructive magic course through him, chanting powerfully in his people’s native tongue as he read and practically letting the gates of hell itself open up to perform this monster of a spell. It wasn't long after that before Louis’ vision grew foggy and spotted in black, and he began to feel indescribably drowsy, and then pretty soon...pretty soon…

 

~~~

 

_Louis fell through the tops of the trees like an earthbound magnet, his body breaking through every branch, no matter its girth, the whole way down. He didn't know how close he was to hitting the forest floor, given that he was falling backwards, but before he could try and twist around to check, the harsh landing came._

_“Fuck,” he grunted, rocks and sticks embedded in his skin from the unforgiving impact of the crash. He painfully stood and scratched at his abused skin to expel the overload of pebbles inside it, and then looked around._

_He'd been here before…_

_In the span of a blink, he remembered everything. Jenner, the spell, and his mission. “This is that fucking forest,” he said aloud, its familiarity taking him back to the dream he'd shared with Auron all that time ago._

_He set off in an aimless direction in search of that one particular clearing he'd come to last time, sharp branches licking at his cheeks as he went, but he didn't care. This was a dream, after all. Things started to look increasingly familiar, and when he spotted the telltale clearing through the trees mere metres away, he set himself in the lowest gear possible to run as fast as he could, tumbling out into the open area and spinning around in search of the Aelius twin he needed._

_And he was there, alright. Lying peacefully in that same patch of grass and sporadic daisies without a care in the world, letting the overhead sunshine bathe him in a way it usually never got to. It sounded foreign to Louixander’s thoughts, because it was, but Auron was a sight for sore eyes. “I can honestly say I'm glad to see you,” he blurted incredulously, shaking his head as he laughed in disbelief._

_Auron cracked an eye open and turned his face to regard Louis, an unknowing but intrigued expression playing with his browline. “Who might you be?” he asked, making no move to sit up or run away when Louis frantically jogged up to him._

_“Auron, it's me. It's Louis. Listen, you have to_ — _” Louis cut off when the atmosphere of the dreamscape noticeably fluttered, much like an underwater ripple caused by an item drop upon the surface. “No!” he cried to the sky, doubting Jenner could hear him but feeling the need his voice his detestation for the unfair happenings. “Not yet!”_

 _“Keep your voice down, I was having a nap,” Auron muttered, starting to close his eyes again when the stranger chucked a stick at his face. “Excuse me?! What the fuck is your_ —”

_“Auron, listen! I don't have time to explain, but you know me! It's me! Lexy! It's Lexy!” Louis stressed, slapping at his chest and begging the universe to let him reach the befuddled twin._

_“I don't know a…” Auron began in a scoff, his voice withering to a low mumble as he painstakingly processed the name, “...Lexy…”_

_The world they were in continued to sway and flicker as the distant trees disappeared row by row, leaving Louis and Auron locked in unblinking eye contact within the clearing as a thick cloak of darkness rapidly closed in on them._

_“LEXY!” Auron suddenly bellowed in blatant recognition, wrenching into a sitting position and staring with the widest eyes on him Louis had ever seen._

_Louis spent the last second they had together slowly nodding in confirmation, a million words flying between their intense gazes as Auron’s face underwent a vast array of emotions—Auron got it. He’d figured it out. He knew. For that split second, Auron knew everything. And then it was gone._

 

~~~

 

Louis gasped awake, frenzied voices making their way into his fuzzy cognizance as he forced his muscles to pull him upright. A quick glance around the room showed him the aftermath of the disaster, and it’s a wonder no one had been impaled by flying wood stakes.

An ear-piercing wail shocked him all the way into the present, and his eyes landed on the crowd of vampires that surrounded the tormented Jenner, his skin steaming and his limbs twitching as he dealt with demons that Louis couldn’t even conceptualize.

“Jenny! My sweet little Jenny! You can’t do this anymore, baby,” Harlock whined, crushing the sobbing warlock against his chest and hissing at everyone else to back off with their unhelpful actions.

“It hurts!” Jenner screeched tightly, his face scrunched as his spine convulsed in undoubted agony.

“I know it hurts, Jenny. It’s gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay,” Harlock cooed through his tears, wracked with a guilt that just kept stacking higher and higher the more times Jenner had something horrible happen to him.

“Jen—” Louis choked, crawling over to the pair regardless of Harlock’s warning hiss.

Jenner opened his eyes and craned his head up to catch sight of Louis, reaching out with a shaking hand to ask for Louis’.

Louis obliged and clutched Jenner’s hand, holding it gently in both of his and wishing he could do something—anything—to ease Jenner’s obvious suffering. “What happened?” he asked Harlock, also opening the floor for anyone else who was willing to fill him in.

“He overdid it,” Harlock replied, kissing Jenner’s vibrating curls and rocking them back and forth. “You passed out and he started screaming. I couldn’t get through the wind. I tried to, baby, I really did—” he said to his lover, who jaggedly nodded in understanding, “—but the magic was like a bomb. I couldn’t do anything...and it fried him. I can’t keep watching this,” he growled to Louis, like everything to date had been none other than his accountable fault.

“I’m sorry,” Louis whimpered, overcome with grief that his needs had to be met at the expense of another’s health. Harlock was right...Jenner couldn’t keep doing this. Sooner or later, he wouldn’t bounce back…

“Did it work?” Jenner croaked, jolting from a sharp wave of pain and crying out before regaining his breath and piercing Louis with a desperate stare.

“Yeah, Jen. It did,” Louis confirmed, rendering everyone else speechless as that knowledge sunk in. Jenner weakly smiled to hear his torture had seen a success that made it worth the struggle, and then he fell limp in Harlock’s arms, falling deep into a slumber that he deserved more than anyone else in the world.

Harlock sighed in relief and pulled Jenner closer, rearranging his limbs so he could hold him like an infant and keep him under close examination. He seemed to ponder over the last spoken words, and he turned his face to Louis with a curious expression, all other eyes traveling to him as well in amazement. “Did it really work?” he asked lowly—it wasn’t that Harlock doubted the capabilities of his skillful lover, but connecting consciousnesses in a shared dream was beyond that of even his wildest imaginations.

“Only for a small second, but...yeah, it did,” Louis said with unchallengeable honesty, catching the small breaths of stupefied marvel from his group as they reorganized the reality they’d always known and added this to the list. Surely they hadn’t doubted Jenner’s strength either, but seeing it was certainly something else. Louis can attest to that, having walked two shared dreams now in the span of a week. Or five—however fucking long it had been since first waking up in the tunnels.

All this aside, Louis had to focus on this progression he’d just made in the Amnesia-Twins-Nuclear-Meltdown of 1973. For one small second, he’d been one with Auron’s mind, and for one small second, Auron had _remembered_ him. For one small second, every wrong in Louis’ relative world had righted itself like the impossible merging of yin and yang. It had been gone in a flash, but he was now filled with more motivation than he ever thought he’d have access to. Something was blooming here...something could be done with this. Without a doubt.

Think what he could do with _two_ seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh...Seems like Jenner needs a break. Certainly a new magical creature would come as a big help, no? Hmm? You'll see.  
> Alright for one, Deidei, message me when you read this.  
> Also also, I just changed the ending. So I need like a week to figure this shit out. I'm burning myself, and I need to step back for a minute because I haven't been proud of anything I do until I redo it six times, and I'm getting tired of that. I need to focus on outlining, and get a clear picture, because the ending I had just threw itself out of the window and I can't be worrying about chapter 18 when I need THE PLOT. So gimme a little bit, and I'll be back when i figure it out. I'll still upload if it gets too long tho, but it may be slower, I DON'T WANT to catch up with myself. I really don't. But we'll see. I wouldn't just leave you hanging for too long, but I can't write 18 right now. I simply cannot. Need time. Time time time. This is what we all signed up for tho lol. you'd still be waiting if I hadn't uploaded this until I was done, even longer, so hang tight we'll get through it.  
> Oh, 18 isn't the end btw. Idk if I made that clear. Idk how many chapters this will be, 18 is just what I'm on right now. The ending I had planned is just different, so I don't want to focus on 18 when I'm having to reorganize shit. That is what I meant. Okay, carry on.


	12. Dumb & Dumber, Sailing in Style

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to hell for that chapter title.  
> I lost someone I loved today, and I'd like everyone to read his name:  
> Louis Hjerpe. (like Lewis tho)  
> Just look at that fucking name. He was an incredible boy, he lived, he loved, and he's gone. Anyone who even looks at that name is enough for me. I just don't want him to disappear. I'll temporarily bring him back—even if it's just for a second—any time someone reads his name. Love you, buddy. More than you probably ever knew (actually, no, I was obvious as fuck)  
> Alright, that said, I finally got into the groove again KIND OF, but not really. granted, today was a fucking nightmare, and it felt like an atomic bomb went off in my heart, and idk how much better imma be tomorrow, but here's this chapter.  
> You're still quite a ways behind me, so I'm not too worried. Just...gotta really get shit down. I need time, you must understand, if I burn myself out, all seven of you will suffer the consequences *emotionless snort*. so lemme revive my usual energy, and then things will be set right.  
> Also, the single line of the vague ass summary for this book is in this chapter.

Auron launched himself out from under the duvet and hopped onto his feet, balancing his weight on the squishy mattress while he gasped and choked in a panic he couldn't explain.

“Auree!” Hadrian cried in concern as he bolted awake, wrapping a tight fist around Auron’s ankle to keep him steady. “What's—”

“Don't forget!” Auron bellowed without discernable purpose, toppling over and landing with a bounce beside his brother, who wrenched into a sitting position and took him in his arms.

“Don't forget what?” Hadrian inquired, petting Auron’s hair and doing his very best to calm him down—a fruitless ambition.

“The dream, Hadrian. The...the…” Auron trailed, his eyebrows dancing in confusion as his face snapped back and forth from dumbfounded to furious.

“Auron, you're scaring me,” Hadrian said carefully, pulling back to grab his brother’s face and stare into his manic eyes. He knew these eyes. They chimed warning bells of an imminent meltdown, and when Auron started violently trembling, Hadrian knew it was already too late. “Auron…”

“Something’s not right!” Auron shouted, throwing Hadrian’s wrists away from his face and tumbling off the edge of the bed, clumsily shuffling backward as he shook his head and scratched at his forearms. “Something is wrong...this isn't...no…”

“Auron—Auron _please_ just take a second—can you tell me what's wrong?” Hadrian pleaded, scrambling after his brother and approaching him like one would a wounded animal. “It was just a dream,” he soothed, gathering that whatever happened in that dream had precipitated this mess.

“No!” Auron screeched, gripping his hair at the top of his head with both hands and falling hard against the wall behind him, uselessly sliding down and crash-landing onto his side. “Jupiter, no!”

“Auree!” Hadrian squealed, leaping across the entire room and skirting along the stone floor on his kneecaps without a care to their consequent damage. “Reel it in, Auron. Come on, come back,” he bade, gripping Auron’s shaking shoulders and trying hopelessly to grab his attention.

He realized then with a horrified twist in his gut that Auron was unable to be reached, and he knew from past experiences that if this continued on the path it was, Auron wouldn’t come back for days. Maybe weeks. “Azazel!” he roared over his shoulder, whipping between the choice of remaining with his brother or running out the door to flag their maker down. “Azazel, get in here! Help!”

“Hadrian,” Auron sobbed, nails at Hadrian’s chest tearing into his flesh to ground himself, as though he would slip and fall to the Earth’s core if he let go.

“It’s okay. I promise you you’re going to be okay. I’m right here,” Hadrian professed, offhandedly glad that Auron had mentioned his name at all—that proved that he was still teetering on the edge, but that he hadn’t lost himself quite yet.

“It’s all wrong,” Auron choked, a string of similar and equally ominous statements churning out of his frantically bitten lips.  

“Auron!” Azazel called as he flew through the door, flashing over to the huddled twins in the corner of their room and guiding Hadrian out of the way. “Look at me,” he urged to Auron, lifting his face with a strong grip and forcing the lock of their eyes whether Auron wanted it or not.

“Azazel,” Auron cried, latching himself onto his maker instead and clawing at his comforting arms. Azazel had freed him from his stabbing mind more times than he could count, and he was the only creature on Earth that he had to cure him of the episodes. “Take it away,” he sniveled, staring with wide eyes into Azazel’s compulsive ivory irises and stopping himself from blinking even once.

“Everything is fine,” Azazel said monotonously, pushing his lure into the cacophony of Auron’s consciousness and gradually convincing him that his statement was true. “Nothing is wrong. Nothing is out of place. You’re exactly where you should be,” he said to the hypnotized child, retaining his palpable relief when Auron’s eyes completely glossed over. He’d almost remembered everything—Azazel didn’t understand how, but this was too close a call for his comfort. This could not happen again.

“It’s fine,” Auron said unsurely, glancing to his paralyzed brother and smiling lazily at his antics.

“Auron,” Hadrian blubbered, smoothing his brother’s hair back and turning his eyes to Azazel, who looked like he’d just run two countries in five seconds. “It was a dream. He woke up saying he had to remember—”

“He didn’t have a dream,” Azazel suddenly said with the persuasive force of a lightning bolt, holding Hadrian under the chin and glaring into his eyes to scare him away from pondering it further. “There was no dream. This didn’t happen,” he urged, blasting his compulsive aura out to encompass both of them and erase all memory of this suspiciously recollective event.

 _What caused such an event?_ It wasn’t that Azazel was out of touch, or losing his strength, it was as though a secondary power was at work—reaching into Auron’s dreams. Needless to say, by the power of a warlock. _Alexander_ , he growled in his thoughts, furious to have to admit that there was nothing he could do about that. Dream-walking couldn’t be interrupted from the outside; not even with a lure.

He wondered what this meant for his plans to hide them away from that King forever; if Alexander reached both of them, they could easily tell him of their location and this place would be crawling with Guardians. And apparently his own brother would be with them. And the more Alexander did it, the harder it would become for Azazel to maintain the lure of amnesia. It would inevitably drain his every morsel of mental energy to keep it up.

 _Wonderful,_ he groaned, now positive that they had to travel endlessly and never settle until Alexander and this warlock of his were dead. And Azazel would see to that—Alexander may not have been a direct threat against him before, but he certainly was now; and for that, he had to die. Again.

“Come over here, boys. I’ll put you to bed,” Azazel said softly, clasping Auron’s hand to help him off the ground until Hadrian took over and lifted him into his arms. He guided Hadrian to their bed and waited as he set his brother down and tucked him in, jumping in after him and scooting in close. “How are you feeling?” he asked to make sure, smiling at their placid and oblivious faces.

“We’re fine,” Auron grumbled in annoyance, like he was being personally victimized by Azazel’s coddling presence.

“Go back to sleep, the sun is in the sky now,” Azazel ordered, placing two hands onto the twins’ top cheekbones and stroking them affectionately.

Exhaustion hit them both like a freight train and Auron raised his arm up over his head, bending his elbow down to pat Harry’s back and get him closer.

Hadrian complied and snuggled in, resting his temple on Auron’s silent chest and sighing into the atmosphere. Auron’s arm then dropped down onto his skin with a force that seemed excessive, but when Hadrian glanced up, he found it was because Auron was already fast asleep. _Figures,_ he thought fondly, taking a moment and wondering what the secondary buzzing in his head could be.

He couldn't shake the feeling that he was forgetting something important, and that he'd be worse off in a vast general if he couldn't remember; but before he could ask Azazel, an adamant sleep grabbed him by the hair and dragged him down into its dark and extraordinary abyss. _Figures._

 

_~~~_

 

Louis knew that scent. He knew the scent ironically because he didn't recognize it, and that was what woke him up. The foreign scent of vampires outside his immediate circle, thereby enemies of said circle. _More enemies._ “It just doesn't fucking stop, does it?” he grumbled to the darkened ceiling, sitting himself up as he tasted the air. The scents were kilometres away and closing. _Peachy._ “Everyone up!” he snapped as quietly as he could, kicking bodies in his general vicinity until they turned on, for lack of a better term.

“Is that…” Harlock croaked, groaning when he confirmed the thought to himself. “Every single time,” he mourned dramatically, doing his duty to make sure everyone else was awake.

“Louis, here,” Jenner said, pinching the handle of Auron’s dagger to hand it back to him, unwilling to keep it on his person.

A flashlight was switched on by Stacey for the humans’ benefit and Louis stared down at the weapon after it was dropped onto his palm. He was amazed that no evidence of singes or burns were present on the item that had been at the base of a supernaturally enormous blaze, but he figured that supernatural aspect was likely what had protected it as well.

With a shrug, he pocketed the dagger, fantasizing over a batch of clean clothes as he hiked the trousers up his hips that had been with him since before the tunnels. He didn't know if he'd forgotten to mention it, but he still didn't have a shirt. _That tacky molester,_ he snarled to a faraway Auron, tuning in to the bouts of conversation around him.

“The sun is definitely down,” Liam confirmed to their tensed group, checking the number of foreign scents and snarling at the inconvenience. “The ship might be off the coast by now, but we can't stroll out until they're...disposed of,” he bit, aware the scents were irrefutably locked onto them and wouldn't just disappear—they were looking for a fight.

“Do we wait here?” Erakus asked from his crouched position, Marley under his arm tying his own shoelaces.

“Safer to keep the humans down here and fight near the top of the stairs. Make sure they don't get past us,” William said, making eye contact with the best fighters to assign them the ultimate duty—those fighters being Harlock, Liam, Erakus, Marley, Zayn, Martin, and of course, Louixander.

“I agree. Two groups: one guard, one offense,” Louis said, tossing everyone's bags into the corner where the two humans would wait behind a wall of immortals.

“Good luck,” Jenner said, kissing Harlock hard on the lips to grant him a physical charm to go along with his vocal wish.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis mumbled, stomping up the stairs and halting just before the horizontal ceiling of the trapdoor, choosing to wait until the predators were right on top of them.

The other fighters gathered behind him and Louis ducked down to make sure the humans were protected, glad that Jet had stayed with them because she was the best asset for them to have. “Nobody move,” he said under his breath, his hushed tone independently saying they probably shouldn't talk either.

They stood motionless and eerily silent in their line on the stairs, the only sounds breaking through being the breathing of Jenner and Johnny, and waited for their fate to drop from the heavens. The encroaching vampires reached the tavern and the front door was loudly broken open, footsteps flowing into the premises as a French-accented voice called out into the inhabited darkness.

“At first I thought you might be some of us...but we wouldn't be hiding in a cellar. And I heard you speaking English earlier—you don't belong here, and I'd just like to know who you are. Why don't you come out, no? Let us have a taste of your humans,” the obvious male lilted, the floor creaking underneath his steps toward the back room.

Louis still didn't respond, dedicated to performing a sneak attack even if their scents were like a spilled bottle of perfume wafting through the air in overpowering waves. Martin opened his mouth to fire back in an onslaught of French, but Louis’ preemptive glare knocked him off that course in an instant. _Not here, you frog._

“Not talkative, are we? Some of you smell old...surely you can tell we are too…”

He wasn't lying. The ten or so French predators were undeniably Elders, most older than Martin, but they weren't even close to Alexander’s superior age—misplaced confidence is a killer.

They all shuffled into the back room and organized themselves in a circle around the trapdoor, likely standing with downcast smirks at their hidden “victims” but they hadn't a clue who they were dealing with. Such a mistake.

Quick as a gunshot, Louis slammed against the trapdoor and it swung all the way over with a wooden clash, grinning at the first enemy he saw and extending his fangs. “HI!” he greeted all too cheerfully, leaping from the stairs and knocking the leader down onto his back.

Things got fuzzy after that because Louis entered a murderous trance, taking his aggressions from Hadrian, Auron, and Azazel out on the predators in violent spurts of rage. He knew two had gotten away, and realized he probably shouldn't have allowed that to happen, but he couldn't care enough to let his immediate prey go. The retribution was too sweet. Too satisfying.

“They're calling for backup!” Zayn said the moment he'd taken the last one out. “We need to leave—now.”

“Come on, Jet,” Harlock beckoned, meeting her halfway down the stairs and pulling Jenner along with him.

“Hand him to me,” Liam said to Veronica in regards to Johnny, helping his human onto his back for the run they'd imminently make.

“Let's check that horizon,” Louis said to his alert group, rushing out of the tavern and stumbling into the difficult terrain of sand. Human bodies littered the beach like a post-battle scene—the wreckage of a war—but they wore not the expected uniforms of soldiers. They wore innocent swimsuits. “Did I really miss this?” he muttered to himself, trying to remember back to the earlier morning and check whether or not he'd noticed the beaches of Dunkirk dotted with the dead.

“Shit, there it is!” Erakus hollered, darting forward a few paces with a point of his finger out to sea.

Louis squinted his eyes and searched the dark waterline, faintly making out the dimmed lights of a stupidly large passenger liner with three great big stack funnels poking up along the center, and sighing in relief—for 0.5 seconds.

“There they are!”

Louis’ group snapped their heads to the left and caught the worrisome sight of a multiplied batch of menacing predators, guts tightening in consternation because now their humans were out in the open.

“Run!” Louis shouted, taking off toward the beach in an effort to race the predators to the savior ship.

They sprinted desperately for the shoreline—leaping over human corpses as they did so—and kept their eyes on the enemies, who had taken off rather symmetrically to meet them by the tide, the two forces diagonally closing the distance between them as they neared the point of the V.

“Harlock and Liam, do not stop for anything. Get to that fucking ship!” Louis commanded, prepared to have the ship leave without him if it meant neutralizing the beach and getting the humans to /relative/ safety.

“Did you think I would stop?” Harlock snapped, seamlessly transferring Jenner from his front to his back so he could swim the water with his human above the surface.

Louis snatched Martin, Elijah, Erakus, Marley, Zayn, and William in that order and pulled them over to run with him in a straight line, creating a barrier between their weaker (or preoccupied with humans) half, and their livid opponents. He extended his claws and kept his fingers splayed in anticipation, and with three more long leaping strides, and fierce battle roars from both sides, they collided.

“You sacks of shit!” Louis bellowed, throwing his weight into one such sack to knock him over and buy them time. Just as he'd done, his group set their objectives to shoving the enemies back so everyone else could escape unscathed, but that only worked for so long.

Eventually the predators learned to slip around them and go straight for the sea, so they were then forced to leap _after_ the enemies, as opposed to meeting them face to face, and wrangling them back into the pit of battle. Louis kept his gaze toward the waters, only glancing at his fight when he deemed it necessary, and he was relieved to find that his vampires were a good distance out by now—maybe halfway to the ship. _Yes._

“Don't let them get away!” a black-haired immortal snarled to his cronies, gesturing wildly at Louis’ retreating forces.

“That's not _up to you_ ,” Louis growled with equaled malice, slashing out with his claws and digging three long red lines across the vampire's face. He hissed upon enduring the incisions, but Louis wasn't done, taking it a step further and plunging his thumbs into both of the predator’s eyes. He drove the digits deeper down as his victim squealed like a dying pig, wrenching his hands away and beheading him before the mangled eyes could start to heal. No healing for any predator on this beach—that was Louis’ ambition.

“You're gonna pay for that!” another shrieked in anguish, apparently close to the recently blinded and exterminated pest and taking on an air of eternal revenge.

“Do you thrive on empty fucking threats? Come on! DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!” Louis roared, his normal demeanor of collected efficiency long past the status of shattered, his only wish at present being to ruin—to destroy—as he'd been ruined and destroyed. The joke was on him that nothing would come close.

The fight on the sandy beaches of Dunkirk dragged on in a redundant manner that was in itself, highly unappealing. All Louis wanted was a spark of ‘new’ and ‘exciting’ to entertain his mind away from leaving the bundle of Europe—leaving the lands that Hadrian and Auron were trapped in. Maybe Cináed could help, and _maybe_ Louis wouldn’t be any help to the world on his own, but he still didn't want to leave.

What he wanted to do was send everyone else off in search of the originals themselves. He wanted everyone to leave him the fuck alone so he could search the globe for his twins, even the one he hated. That being said, he understood the importance of his presence in the originals mission, and he knew it wasn't feasible to defect from his family toward the unknown. Okay? He got that. But... _those looks on their faces,_ he recalled with a shudder, plagued with the mental vision of the twins moments before they'd lost all memory of his identity. Of their lives.

“Louis, come on!” Zayn bade, pulling at Louis’ frozen arm and trying to wrangle him into what was essentially the North Sea.

“What— _what_ ,” Louis griped, making a quick assessment of his surroundings and discovering their enemies had been disposed of. “When did that happen?”

“We gotta go, more are on their way,” Zayn urged, finally winning success in getting the King into the water and toward the distant ship.

Louis languidly looked behind him as he was shoved underwater and had to chuckle at the confirmation of Zayn’s account; there was another group heading straight for the coast to replace their fallen comrades, and he hadn't noticed that either. _Just how out of touch am I?_ he wondered, realizing he'd missed a many great detail around him since being released from the underground of Rome. Perhaps his presence wasn't such a dire importance after all.

He let Zayn continue to pull him along as he swam, but he felt bad rather soon and took over his own efforts, cutting through the water beside the Pakistani and making himself useful by constantly looking behind them for predator advances. Of which there were five.

Louis groaned into the saltwater and unintelligible bubbles were released through his attempt, his weighted hands tapping nearby shoulders and pointing over his own to broadcast their situation. Once all were aware of the five predators giving chase, the strongest available fell behind to deal with them first (Louis, Martin, Zayn, and Erakus), none present looking forward to battling underwater, where everything was a thousand times denser and tiresome to maneuver.

And how very tiresome it turned out to be. The five predators didn’t take long to catch up, and the four more righteous fighters met them promptly and courageously—but that in no way meant it was a swift altercation. Battling underwater was indeed every bit as difficult as Louis had expected it to be, and even with vampire strength and speed, it still dragged on like every last one of them was trying to win a race under the sweltering sun.

Hurling every ounce of strength he could muster into the gravity-lacking environment, Louis upped his power exponentially, thrashing through the thick walls of water to cut deep gashes into his enemies’ necks, tainting the dark blue sea with liquid clouds of dark black. He raced to his friends and helped them do away with their aggressors, and guided them back toward the ship as the lifeless bodies they’d killed sunk leadenly to the bottom of the English Channel.  

They swam like dolphins, or some other marine mammal this came naturally to, becoming one with the testy waters so they may reach their destination quicker. It felt like a long time until they reached the starboard hull, but before they knew it, they were clambering up over the deck and dropping down with wet, slopping thuds.

“Full steam!” a familiar voice squawked, inciting a ship-wide jolt as its engines were thrust into motion.

Louis searched for the voice and fully sat up when he found it, laughing in amusement to see its owner stood between his dripping party. “Annabelle, what the bloody fuck are you doing here?” he asked fondly, accepting the helping hand that appeared to lift him off the wooden deck.

“Part of the crew, am I not?” she reasoned, handing him a soft towel from the pile she'd had tucked into her elbow and promptly distributing the rest.

“Sure, but...why’ve you brought an _ocean_ _liner_?” he asked, looking around the vintage ship and huffing in bemused exasperation. There wasn’t a thing new or innovative on the entire vessel (of unnecessarily massive proportions), and it was without a doubt the most conspicuous piece of machinery that could have been sent for them—not to mention loudest. “What is this, the 1920’s? Who even _has_ ships like this anymore? How many people have you got shoveling fucking coal into furnaces down there in the engine room? What is the _point_ of bringing such an old fossil of a transpo—”

“Not another word about my baby, Alexander!” another eerily familiar voice commanded, the tone of it shutting Louis up obediently as he scrambled over to enter the bridge.

“No fucking way...Julius!” Louis greeted with a grin, stepping right up to the general and throwing his arms around him because it just felt like the thing to do. Petra and Bernard stood idly by and gave casual waves, both engrossed in each other too much to break away.

“That’s _Captain_ Julius at the moment, isn’t it?” the Elder chuckled, pointing to a little pin on his peacoat that evidently marked him as the captain, though Louis was none the wiser.

“What the _hell_ is going on?” Louis cackled, throwing himself headfirst into the pleasant distraction of a gripping circumstance—he’d think about shitty things later. “When you said you’d have a ship waiting for me, I didn’t expect _you’d_ be the one sailing it!”

“Right well...I didn’t either. Until I found out the regular Captain of my ship, whom I gave it to long ago, a great and trusted friend of mine, had been murdered by predators,” Julius muttered with a fierce tone of underlying rage, his claws extending in an instant before he quickly, almost apologetically retracted them.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Louis said sincerely, a gentle hand coming up to rest on Julius’s shoulder and offer nothing more than a little support.

“It’s okay. Many have lost those dear to them since the turn of this horrendous occasion,” he reasoned, sounding desperate to convince himself it was just another sign of the times and nothing to cry about.

“Still…”

“Back to what you said about my steamer,” Julius intercepted, steering the conversation away from death like he would the ship away from an iceberg—because this was practically the fucking RMS _Titanic_.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Louis challenged fearlessly, leaning back against a white metal pillar and skewering the smirking Roman with a worthy smirk of his own.

“I have to say that this very ship, sailed by _me_ , helped ferry stranded survivors of the monstrously sunk Titanic in New York City _back_ to Belfast to be with their families,” he said proudly, like that had been his greatest accomplishment of all time—it was honestly close.

“We were here too, you know,” Petra grumbled from her cornered location, making Julius flap his hand about in frustrated acceptance.

“Yes, yes, but I’m speaking in bullet points, dear, not details,” he defended, looking back to Alexander to hopefully gain a newfound level of respect from his idol.

Louis, as it were, was shocked that his mental quip about the Titanic had turned out to be so relevant, and Julius’s assistance in such a trying time would not be forgotten any time soon. “That’s incredible, truly,” he praised, thinking better of the ship now that he knew what it had done.

“I thought so. And what better a time to break it out again than when the King of the world is in need of rescue,” he reasoned with a theatrical bow, though Louis was aware it was not comically overdone—it was just Julius Caesar.

“I’m the King of nothing now,” he chuckled tonelessly, walking around and inspecting the complex knobs and levers of the bridge and trying to guess what everything was for.

“Nonsense, Alexander. You will never not rule the world—it is only that the world does not realize it’s being guided,” Julius asserted, scoffing at the mere thought of the posed rulers of late. “The predators are in great danger from you, Aléxandros. Do not think I lack faith in your ability to take out every last one of them.”

“No pressure,” Louis snorted, hooking his fingers over the obvious rope of the ship horn and letting it rip regardless of the stupidity in the act—he never would have forgiven himself if he’d passed this up. The ship wailed with an ear-piercing howl for two seconds and then dropped down at least three octaves, both harmonies sounding as one rattling Louis’ bones with pulsing sound waves that melted his brain until he let go of the rope (for self-preservation), and painfully fingered at the insides of his aching ears. “Wow,” he sputtered, laughing as he tried to make out the muffled sound of the world through a stagnant high-pitched whine in his ear drums.

“Yeah, no pressure at all,” Julius choked, the entire board and crew furious as all shit that Alexander had pulled such a blaring horn without warning. “Thanks for that,” he added, chuckling at the sheepish but satisfied expression of the mischievous King.

“Any time,” Louis quipped, glancing over his shoulder and bursting up into inappropriate giggles to find his whole group rubbing at their ears and groaning in pain.

Julius sighed and ran a hand over his forehead, returning to his duties as captain and shooing Alexander out of the bridge before he could make a bigger conundrum. “Preferably not,” he said, patting the King on the shoulder as he booted him out and hastily shut the door behind him.

Louis met the hardened eyes of his family and withheld his tempting shrieks of laughter, spending the most time staring at his disapproving Mother and shrugging as innocently as possible. “...My bad.”

 

\---

 

“Yeah, I know,” Erakus sighed from his little corner at the stern of the ship, speaking in hushed tones to respond to Marley’s comment about being worried for Louis.

The King was all the way across the deck at the bow by himself, his arms hanging over the metal bars of the railing as he gazed blankly at the rushing waters below. He'd been like that for the entire trip.

“Do you think he's like...traumatized?” Marley whispered, glancing up at the similar forms of Martin and Tanner on the highest level of the deck above the bridge and noting how unblinkingly silent they were as well.

Erakus followed Marley’s scope of vision and frowned at the butler couple, stepping back to lean his elbows on the bar behind him and huff to the cloudy sky. “Hard not to, right? I don't think he's gonna be okay until we find Harry again…”

“Hadrian!” Louis snapped down the length of the ship, his tiny distant form angrily steaming like the smoking stacks of the ship itself and making Erakus and Marley flinch like they'd been snuck up on doing something naughty.

“Sorry!” Erakus yelled back frantically, catching the heavy expressions of Martin and Tanner and groaning at his stupidity—perhaps they shouldn't be talking about this. Erakus didn't know how else they'd have filled the time, though; after towel-drying, they'd all been given a change of clean clothes, and then set off in groups to spend time with their lovers. So, for Erakus, that private time with Marley had inevitably turned to conversation about their predicament. Sue him. He can admit he should leave Louis’ name out of it, however—Louis didn't _have_ his lover here to gossip with.

“Sit down with me,” Marley suggested, lowering himself to the wooden deck and lightly tugging at Erakus’s sleeve.

Erakus followed him down obediently, straightening his tired spine back against the white-painted metal and guiding his lover under his arm, knocking his head over to rest on Marley’s soft hair and steal all the peace they could. “Love you, Mars,” he said sweetly, smiling at his Aussie’s melodic giggle.

“Mars. A planet, huh? Does that make you Earthakus?” Marley teased, weaving their fingers together on the hand that was absentmindedly stroking his collarbone.

“Aha. I guess it does,” Erakus chuckled, quickly falling in love with their planetary nicknames.

Marley broke the cuddle by wrenching his weight forward, causing Erakus’s hand to drop down with a smack as he whipped around to face him with infectiously giddy energy flowing through his body.

“What is—”

“Do you want to get married?” Marley blurted, biting his lip with a grin when Erakus spat out a round of bright laughter.

“Married? Hunny, that's illegal. Our love is lawless,” Erakus reasoned, lifting the fallen hand up to hold Marley’s cheek.

“Nonsense. We wouldn't fit a traditional title anyway. But I got these,” Marley said with a smirk, pulling two plain gold wedding bands out from his pocket, having evidently moved them when he changed clothes, but that wasn't the point.

“Where the hell did you get these?” Erakus cackled, grabbing Marley’s wrist and inspecting the rightly sized rings shimmering in his palm.

“I...well, I kinda stole them from two human men in Rome. I didn't want you to know, so I was very sneaky about it,” Marley confessed, his nerves at an all-time high, but his excitement right up there with it.

“You stole...you stole two wedding rings from two zombie guys in Rome to marry me?” Erakus asked incredulously, smiling at his palpably embarrassed lover to reassure him.

“Don't make me ask,” Marley said with a straight face, a slight fear in his eyes as he stared into Erakus’s ice-blue irises.

“I wouldn't let you anyway, stand up,” Erakus demanded as he hauled Marley to his feet and remained on his knee, both lovers laughing uncontrollably and trying hard to keep composure. “Marley Smith...” he began when he could wrestle his nerves away, his heart in knots as he prepared himself for the question. “Will you—”

“Yup!” Marley interrupted in an emotional squeal, tackling Erakus to the deck as he sealed his lips over his fiancé’s.

Applause rang out amongst their unnoticed company and the lovers broke apart in shock, quickly learning that everyone had followed the telltale beginnings of a proposal and stood avidly by to watch it go down. Even Alexander was leaned against a pole and slowly clapping for them, an unreadable glint in his ancient eyes that didn't look altogether disapproving.

“Congratulations!” Stacey sobbed, wailing into Jet’s chest with a bleeding heart of adoration.

“Can anyone marry us?” Erakus asked, accepting the bear hugs his brothers flew down to give them both.

“We’d need a minister for that,” Jet reluctantly denied, stilted quiet by Harlock as he held a hand up.

“Julius is a Captain, he could do it, but even better than that… We have a _King_ ,” Harlock mentioned, looking over at the ancient and raising a knowing eyebrow. Heads turned with Harlock’s to lock onto Alexander, and the vampire under speculation sputtered in refusal, scoffing his feelings about it to the clouds until Marley’s meek voice stole his attitude from him.

“Please, Louis?”

Louis looked down at the knelt form of Marley, surrounded by three Sparrow brothers with eager looks on their faces and finding them hard to deny. He then looked at the rest of his company, discovering the exact same pleading and hopeful features on each one of them and sighing in acceptance. “I am the closest thing you're gonna get,” he admitted, wincing from the cries of victory that erupted after his participation. _This kind of impulsive behavior is what I love about them anyway._

“Now!” Marley yelped, furiously nodding along with Erakus as they peered up at the King.

“Oh fine,” Louis drawled, calling for the audience to make a small cluster on the deck facing the bow and then walking himself to the very front on the other side of the handholding and blubbering couple.

He began what he could only assume was an acceptable opening to a wedding ceremony, throwing in dashes of humour where it was tasteful and touching on the health and efficiency of their relationship so far. He asked them each separately if they swore to...be a good husband essentially, in more eloquent words, and they pledged it to eternity with choked-up “I do’s.” So that was good.

He requested them to present and trade the rings after making their vows respectively, and they had with bleary eyes, and now came the good part. “All present hath witnessed on this night the joining of Erakus and Marley in not-so-holy matrimony. They have professed and promised their love with the giving and receiving of the rings, and my work here is done. By the power vested in me by the God of Gods, Zeus, I now pronounce you Dumb and Dumber. You may now k—”

Erakus snatched Marley into his arms and smashed their lips together as he dipped him down toward the deck, and a fierce accolade broke out in the crowd. Even Julius, his lovers, Annabelle, and some of the unnamed crew had come to pay vocalized homage to the event, and Louis couldn't help his chuckle. _What a night._

“I'm so proud of you, baby!” Veronica cried joyously, yanking Erakus into her arms when he'd finally detached from Marley’s lips. “Your sisters are going to be so upset they weren't here!”

“Well done, son!” William added, clapping Erakus on the back and then reeling the flustered Marley into a crushing embrace.

Louis watched from the background of the festivities, sending a little thought out to his absent lover, who would have loved nothing more than to be here for this. _Our idiots got married, Hadree. Can you believe it? And I was the one to do it. I'll have to tell you all about it when I get you back, my love. Maybe I'll marry us too, you never know._

“Thank you, Louixander!” Marley sobbed, shaking Louis out of his depressive episode and forcing him to upkeep his air of a happy vampire.

“Don't mention it,” Louis laughed, pushing the both of them off toward the stairs to where the room and board quarters were. “Consummate that shit,” he snorted, rather wishing he could have consummated something himself. _I do miss your body, love. That special song it plays to mine…_

The married couple gave abrupt farewells and raced each other to the nearest bed, and Niall slowly approached the sulking Louis with Stacey quickly coming up behind him. “That hurt you, didn't it?” the blonde asked, probably with good intentions but Louis didn't want to hear it.

“It's nothing,” he barked in defense, closing his eyes when his Mother merely threw her arms around him without a word. Niall got the picture and took Louis’ hand in his, resting his head on his shoulder and being the best friend he could. _There's another reason to come home to me, Hadrian. If you don't, I think I might start beating the shit out of our family._

 

\---

 

“There it is. Scotland,” Harlock said gleefully, staring right down where they were already headed on the British railways and pointing his finger to the left to bring attention to the sign post.

A little H-shaped post with two overlapping rectangle arrow signs; the left with a red plus symbol reading ‘England,’ the right with a white X that read ‘Scotland.’ Pretty self-explanatory.

“You'd think the Anglo-Scottish border would be crawling with predators, wouldn't you?” Liam reasoned in suspicion, wary over why they hadn't encountered any enemies recently. They certainly had when they'd docked the ship and made their way to their destination, dropping William, Veronica, Elijah, and Niko off at Julius’s stronghold with his group at Louis’ ardent request, but now they were here and it was...empty. Too easy.

“Oh yeah? What are they gonna turn, cows? Make all the cows immortal? Have cow slaves?” Harlock snorted, gesturing to the endless plains and hills of Scotland and challenging what the point of conquering grass blades would be.

“Is that possible?” Niall squeaked, unnerved by the thought of rabid and vampiric cows.

“No,” Louis said blandly, always the exasperated corrector of Niall’s iconically stupid questions. _Immortal cows..._

“Would be hilarious, though,” Zayn chuckled, scratching Niall’s scalp and kissing him on the temple.

“Point is, I don't think sneak attacks are on the table for a while. Let’s not waste time here, we gotta get to the vague location of north,” Harlock reminded, every bit as miffed about that as before.

“Don't I know,” Louis groaned, furious that Max hadn't been able to offer anything besides north. _Why is it always north?_

The group shot off into Scotland like rockets, keeping a careful eye out regardless because the world wasn't a place to be complacent in, and it wouldn't be until they could fix this. Louis tuned out the small-talk around him and dedicated his valuable time to cursing Azazel for existing. It may not have been useful, but shit did it feel good. _One of these fucking nights, you home-wrecker. You're gonna wish you'd never met them._

 

_\---_

 

The trek across Scotland was a cold one for the humans, even though it was definitely June-something by now, and they were bundled in multiple jackets and tucked into their vampire’s arms for warmth. Louis hated it.

It sounds so selfish, and maybe it is, but he hated everything that had to do with love and affection right now—it all hurt so much. All he wanted was Hadrian’s arms wrapped under his back, carrying him along these grassy humps of Scottish land and telling him how the moonlight was dancing over his face or something. Then Louis would reciprocate in a swoon, throwing in a backhanded compliment if he could, because those were the only ones he could believably land. “ _You're so sickly pale already, babe, you don't need the moonlight to shine_.” Something like that.

“Shit!” he suddenly choked, turning everyone's heads because a sudden thought had blasted into his mind and he needed it confirmed.

“What is it, Lou?” Harlock asked, sidestepping until he was right beside Louis and Jenner was able to reach out and brush his arm for comfort.

“Was there...did Hadrian leave anything at Liam’s? I mean would anything of his be at that house still?” he asked hopefully, piercing Liam and Erakus with pointed stares when Jenner and Harlock looked at each other in mirrored cluelessness.

“Uh shit, was there?” Liam asked to himself, Johnny adopting a curious expression as well as they tried to remember.

“Yes! YES, there was!” Marley gasped, clutching his husband’s sleeve (he still grins over that) and seeing if it would jog his memory too.

“What? What was it?” Louis asked, trying not to get his hopes up in case if it turned out to be an inaccurate claim, but Marley’s intensity was frightfully contagious.

“His black jacket!” Marley announced, pointing at Erakus knowingly when the Sparrow gaped in realization.

“He's right! Hadrian left his jacket when we left for the Beatrix betrayal,” he confirmed, the pair of them running backward to directly communicate with their King-turned-marriage-officiant.

“We've gotta get it after this—that way Jenner can do the spell with Hadrian and me instead,” Louis gushed animatedly, pivoting over to lock eyes with Jenner and halting his celebration like he’d pulled a plug when he caught Jenner’s apprehensive demeanor.

“Now wait a second,” the warlock said reluctantly, clearing his throat against the wind that constantly flew down it from their immortal speed. He’d heard vampires saw it more as bending time as everything slows, but for Jenner, it was like sticking his head out of an aeroplane. “You’re talking about an article of clothing here…”

“So?” Louis asked, not yet grasping the warlock’s point.

“ _So_...Louis, the spell calls for an item of special and deep significance. Pardon me, and I hate to say it, but I don’t think a jacket would measure up to that requirement,” he reasoned, crossing his arms to block the hurt from Louis’ broken emotions that leaked out of his face. He felt like shit for knocking him down like that, but—

“But it’s the best we have,” Louis almost whined, unwilling to give up just because the odds were unlikely. If he’d given up every time the odds were unlikely, he never would have conquered Persia.

“It is, but...but I don’t think it’ll work,” Jenner sighed, swallowing profusely as the harsh air continued to flow down into his lungs without his permission.

“Will you try anyway?” Louis asked, close to begging the warlock for his assistance if he kept refusing him.

Jenner had to stop himself from huffing in frustration and forcibly nodded his head, sending a bit of that bright spark back into Louis’ eyes in doing so. “Yeah, Louis. Of course I’ll try. Just...just don’t—”

“Get my hopes up, I know,” Louis finished for him, patting him on his orange curls and setting the spell business aside until it became relevant again. _Harry, I might get to see you soon! I might get to actually s—_ “Holy shit!” he rasped, sliding to a stop and causing his group to do the same.

“What! What is it!” Harlock snapped, on high alert as he whipped around every which way.

“Cináed,” Louis blurted with a closed throat, nodding at the shocked and terrified looks he received. The air was stale with the scent of his blood, or rather, where his blood had come from, and he’d be six feet under before he wouldn’t recognize its scarily sour twang. “He’s close,” he added under his breath, sniffing around the area to pinpoint exactly what ‘close’ stood for.

“What do we do?” Harlock asked, squeaking when Louis grabbed his collar and yanked him down toward a stone wall that separated two plains and slammed him (carefully with Jenner in mind) against it in a lackluster attempt to hide. The group had obviously gone with them and were now hunkered down behind the mossy barrier, peeking over the top of it and zeroing in on a not-so-distant quaint home atop a grassy knoll.

“Shh...you two with me. Everyone else stay here,” Louis said so quietly neither of the humans even heard him, the point only making itself known when both of their vampires set them down and began to crawl away.

“Harlo—”

“Shh!” Louis hushed silently once more, holding a hand over the warlock’s mouth and shaking his head pleadingly. Cináed listening in was not something Louis wanted to accidentally ensure, and the best way to do this thing was anonymously—at first—see, Louis didn’t know how Cináed would take all this, but he needed the chance to try and persuade him, or he’d never get anywhere.  

Jenner wrangled his insistence down for the group’s benefit, but he had something rather bloody crucial to mention about this house up ahead. Something they should definitely know just to keep it in their minds. Nevertheless, he slunk down in defeat, deciding to just let them encounter it on their own so he could give them a fat ‘I told you so’ later.

Once Jenner was submissively soundless, Louis nodded again at Harlock and Liam and gracefully leapt over the wall, landing with a muffled plop of shoes against dirt and breaking it even further with his hands. His idea here was that Liam and Harlock, being descendants of Cináed, would stand for Louis’ references for this job interview of an interaction, and pairing it with the fact that he was of Azazel’s partial genes, they could also be his bodyguards. Which was pointless if they were truly to fight Cináed—but it may help his case regardless.

The trio crept along the grass as they neared the hobbit-hole-like house, which, if Louis’ honest was _far_ too shacky for a vampire of Cináed’s stature, but he forced his mind to regard the more important matters at hand. They got to the door uninterrupted and didn’t quite know what to do next, shrugging at each other until Louis rolled his eyes and turned the door knob.

“Hello?” he called out obnoxiously, stalking forward with abundant purpose and severely misplaced confidence.

Liam and Harlock groaned behind him but they followed, both of their noses scrunching from constantly taking in the same type of aroma Max naturally carried around with him—the scent of fear-inducing power.

“Cináed!” Louis bellowed, running down a teeny hallway to individually check every single room for the widespread and impossible to point scent when his old maker materialized out of the shadows like the boogeyman and smashed him into the wall by his neck, his feet dangling helplessly as Cináed lifted him two feet off the floor.

“Should have known better than to come here, _child of Azazel_ ,” Cináed snarled, rearing a hand back to kill him when Louis howled out his grovels.

“I'm yours, Cináed! I'm yours! Really smell me, I promise I'm yours!” he screeched from being strangled, both hands clasped around Cináed’s wrist with embedded claws for purchase.

Cináed paused to suss the claim out, and that gave Louis time to really take the sight of him in. He was gorgeous as ever; bright blue eyes with feminine eyelashes, that russet facial hair that surrounded pink, kissable lips; the shoulder-length, thick and wavy blonde hair, the muscular frame, the crazy sharp fangs. _Zeus, I'd forgotten all about you._

“How do you have both?” Cináed demanded in reference to his and Azazel’s blood being used in this immortal’s direct turning, his dangerous gaze fixing itself on two other frozen children of his and flying back to the Elder child in his clutches.

“Uh...that's a long story—”

“Time’s up,” Cináed growled, setting about his murderous intentions when the child loudly intercepted again.

“Look at my eyes! You've seen these eyes before. You know me!” Louis urged, widening the eyes in question and inviting his first maker’s scrutinization.

Cináed squinted his eyes and studied the mismatched colours of the mutt’s upon request, their unique brownish black and blue luminance sparking a memory he hadn't thought of in a long time. “... _Aléxandros_?” he asked in obvious puzzlement, dropping the Macedonian King down and pinning him back against the wall with a hand in the center of his chest.

“Hey there, Theós,” Louis quipped with a courageous familiarity, pursing his lips when Cináed raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. Louis had his interest. _Thank Zeus._ “Long time no see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't want to scare you guys. Don't worry. I may say ominous shit, but I really am happy with Love Endless, and I'm not going anywhere. I have good ideas, I really do. I have ideas that I (with my impossible self-standards) would be proud of making reality, but the PROBLEM lies in the endless© number of ways I could do this. The ambiguous application of these far-off ideas is driving me nuts, and I didn't actually use that break to outline. i took a break from everything entirely, and i feel a lot better now, but of course, today's clusterfuck didn't help. Here, I'll make you read it a-fucking-gain. Louis Hjerpe. Lewis. Say Lewis out loud or something.  
> Okay.  
> Moving on.  
> Now, I will do my very very best to get shit straightened the fuck out. I don't feel pressured with this fic at all, but those of you that are here are the ones that REALLY care, so it's a double-edged sword. Although, you're also the nicest and most understanding, so that's another reason why I feel okay. You're the beans. I gotta do my beans right. Okay, uh, fuckin' —  
> You're so close to my favourite couple. I always said (besides louixadrian) that Jenlock was my favourite, and it kinda still is, but this one's also a favourite. I have too many favourites. Also, one of the most frequent complaints I get is that I have way too many fucking characters and that, allegedly, "none of us" (meaning you) can keep track. Well, if that indeed applies to every single one of you, I'm sorry, but if that's just a generalization of one person's frustrations...well, i'm still sorry, but I don't particularly care as much.  
> I do have a lot of fucking people in this shit, unholy gods. But sometimes? There's people everywhere. Like? What do you want me to say? Sometimes in you're in positions where you're around hella new people, and it's overwhelming at first, but when you stick with them enough, you get used to them.  
> Like, my friend group is a tight-knit group of like idk, 30? 30-35 people? And I definitely remember the size being daunting when I found them in like tenth grade, but now I could tell you whose back I was rubbing blindfolded cuz I massaged everyone to the point of instant familiarity? I am rambling SO MUCH, wow. I think today just made me feel like I need another fucking friend. Apparently this box is that friend, and by extent, you.  
> So, uh...now that we're friends, what's your favourite colour? Ha, kidding. Unless you wanna tell me; in which case, mine is purple.


	13. Theós and the Impossible Mother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first straight couple in Love Endless (who isn't just somebody's parents). I'm so proud of myself. I wanted to be inclusive, what can I say? Equality—flowers all around. Unfortunately, the entire world isn't gay; gotta be realistic. Nah nah, jokes aside, this couple wasn't the product of anything specific, it just happened. And I ADORE them. Shit starts looking up in this chapter, kinda. You'll see what I mean. Hope is planted...now we just gotta let it grow.  
> Also, thank you to everyone who gave kind words about my Louis. Gets easier every day. My poor friend group gets hit with tragedy like it's the blitzkrieg. We started losing people back in like 2010 and it hasn't really stopped. Cursed, I guess.  
> Anywho, here.

“Agnes!” Cináed called down the length of the hall, keeping his fangs bared threateningly at Alexander and emitting a low hiss to ensure he didn't try anything.

Louis heard a responsive approach and twisted his head to the left, observing as an admittedly beautiful and very obviously pregnant blonde female shuffled down the corridor into the light. She wore a long-sleeved, dark blue and raggedy milk maid dress down to her ankles with a white frilly apron thrown over it, and no shoes were to be found on her slim feet, one hand holding her stomach as she curiously stepped up to them.

“Look into this one’s mind,” Cináed requested, inclining his head to the vampire smushed against the wall. “He has made a rather fantastic claim, and I'd like the truth.”

The woman called Agnes hummed to accept, placing herself directly in front of the vampire with heterochromia in his eyes as Cináed stepped aside to give her room.

Louis flinched as the apparent witch slapped two hands on either side of his face, and he felt the instant presence of another in his mind and thoughts, the feeling of violation making him squirm in discomfort as his darkest secrets were laid out before the intruder.

“His name is Alexander. Born of Philip II of Macedon, turned by the great second of kin Cináed in the year 332 b.c.. Perished in 1599. Reincarnated thirteen times, the most recent of which being in 1955. Turned by his ancient Roman lover, a child of Azazel, who had harbored Alexander’s blood from centuries of drinking it, thereby returning to him the memories of his identity,” she finished, precariously swaying on her feet as she exited the vampire’s mind and let go of his face.

Cináed rushed to catch her around her shoulders when she began to fall, and he spoke sweet nothings into her ear that had Louis reeling in confusion.  

“There, there. I’ve got you. You did well, my love. Very informative. Thank you,” he cooed, a gentle hand splayed out on her rounded belly while he kissed her lips in gratitude.

“Anything for my prince of darkness,” she mumbled tiredly, letting her weight lean fully into Cináed’s chest.

“Now wait just a second,” Harlock blurted, his face dumb with confoundment as he scrutinized the evident lovers. Cináed glanced over at him in annoyance, and though that should have scared Harlock into being silent, he couldn't seem to stop the flow of his words. “You...you two are _lovers_ ,” he breathed, pointing back and forth between them.

“Some discovery of yours,” Cináed muttered, carefully letting Agnes go when she gained enough strength to stand on her own.

“But then...er…” Harlock stuttered, staring with wide eyes at her largely pregnant frame and lazily tapping his own flat torso with his index finger. “She's with child. Do you...do you mean to tell me that it's—”

“It's mine,” Cináed confirmed warily, a protective hand curling over to rest on the bump while he scooted slightly in front of her.

“ _WHAT_!” Louis, Liam, and Harlock combined squeaked in shock, looking to each other and sharing their lost expressions.

“Keep your voices down,” Cináed hissed, his eyes ablaze with anger for their lack of polite behavior.

“Okay, but that's...that's not possible,” Louis tried to say with conviction, the very concept going starkly against anything he'd ever known. Hadn't he been saying that a lot in this life?

“Is it not?” Cináed challenged, snorting at the ignorant boy in his presence. “I'm not dead like you children are. I'm free to reproduce; _you're_ not. Although, I still wasn't compatible with humans, but Aggie is a witch—a master of olden black magic—it took her a while, but she recently found a way to keep our spawn alive. And that's all you need to know. She carries my child, end of story. It's none of your business anyway,” he bit, considering his private affairs already past the point of too revealing.

“But...but what _species_ will it be?” Liam asked, all three of the visiting vampires unable to give up on their curiosity—it was too astounding.

“We don't know,” Agnes answered in a light Scottish accent, one that she shared with Cináed but it was obvious they both had morphed English ones. “A new one. This has never before been done; it'll be the first of its kind.”

“Right,” Cináed voiced, relenting to speak of it just a little while longer. All defensive inclinations aside, he was a monstrously proud Father. “To me, it smells like a mixture of both, but we won't know what that means until she gives birth. Now what the fuck are you all doing here? Why do you have a large melting pot of a group hiding outside? What do you want so bad that you'd bust my door in and startle my pregnant lover?” he growled, only calming down when Agnes pressed a soothing hand on his chest.

“Invite them in, dear,” she bade to her fuming lover, her eyes locking onto the immortal with the eyepatch. “This one beds a warlock, and I can feel he's out there. I'd like to meet him.”

“Are you sure?” Cináed murmured softly, not wanting Aggie to push herself just to be personable. He'd kill them all if she asked him to.

“Yes, love. I'm fine,” she assured, smiling at the eyepatch vampire again as he visibly mulled over something.

“Are you…” Harlock began, scouring his mind for the tiny detail of a last name. “Are you Agnes _Waterhouse_?” he stressed, positive he'd gotten it right when she raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“The very same,” she replied, unknowing of the vicious glare Cináed was pelting the Elder with.

Harlock hummed in recognition and couldn't wait to tell Jenner. His warlock had talked of her before; an unparalleled witch of her time in England, which was in the 1500’s, and savagely killed by the fiery stake. Well...it was clear that she hadn't died at all.

“Come on, you need to sit down,” Cináed urged, helping her along the hall after shoving Alexander down its length to clear the path. His visitors dispersed to unobtrusive corners of his modest living room, with its thick rugs and crackling fireplace, and they only tentatively stepped forward when he'd lowered Aggie and himself onto their settee. “Go collect your people,” he said with a swish of his arm, causing the eyepatch immortal to take up the order and run out the door while the other two stayed put.

“Thanks for not killing me,” Louis said to break the burst of silence, gulping at Cináed’s smirk.

“But I did kill you,” the original lilted in amusement, of course referring to the turning he'd enacted as Alexander was dying of fatal fever.

“True…”

“How did you _find_ me, Alexander?” Cináed huffed in exasperation, highly irate that he'd been discovered by so many so quickly. “I haven't seen you in thousands of years.”

“Your brother,” Louis informed to place blame, more than happy to get it away from himself.

“Which one?” Cináed pressed, the statement not amounting to much as he had eight of those.

Louis was about to say ‘Max’ until he remembered that his own Mother had bestowed him that name because he apparently didn't remember his own title. “I don't know. The one that dwells under the United States,” he said, hoping that would be enough.

“Oh that one,” Cináed quipped in understanding, the vision of his youngest sibling creeping into his thoughts. “You know, I _thought_ I smelled him recently...but it was so odd and fleeting that I wrote it off. So he gave up my location, did he? I'm gonna have a little chat with him about that,” he growled darkly, beyond furious that his life had been blasted into the open by his own brother.

“Can you tell me his name?” Louis asked out of genuine wonderment, thinking it neat if they could put this mystery to rest.

“I...ehm. I can't actually remember,” Cináed admitted in uncharacteristic surprise with himself, trying hard to recall his brother's name and coming up short.

“Wow,” Louis uttered bluntly, beside himself that this was such a fucking _thing_.

The entire group then filed into the small-quartered living space and Cináed groaned with a closed mouth much like a cat when it's agitated from having so many strangers in his house—not to mention such a wide variety of his siblings’ scents. It was like a family reunion and he hated it. He had to crack a smile, though, when a densely freckled and orange-haired human choked on a breath and flew down to the dusty rug at his feet to bow to his Aggie.

“Agnes Waterhouse!” Jenner cried reverently, his forehead bouncing off the rug as he smashed it down in worship of the legendary presence before him. “It is a privileged honour,” he exulted, almost in full-blown shock to even be near her. The presence of a magical creature was that thing he’d tried to inform Harlock of before he’d left with Liam and Louis, but he hadn’t known it was _Agnes fucking Waterhouse_. Harlock had mentioned it to him outside, along with asking everyone not to bring up her pregnancy, but he hadn’t even had the time to process it all before he was led inside, and now here he was.

“Raise your head, little one,” Agnes urged fondly, flapping her hand up to direct him off the floor. “What’s your name?” she asked once she was met with his shining eyes.

“Jenner Cromwell,” he rasped with a nervous quiver in his throat, amazed to be put on first name basis with one of the most notorious English witches in his kind’s history.

“Ahh, a Cromwell. I was quite endeared by them,” she recalled, a frown etching onto her face as she realized the implication of the surname. “The Cromwells were exterminated…” she said with tangible sympathy, delicate fingers coming up to press to her lips.

“I’m the last one,” Jenner confirmed with a heavy heart, feeling himself near the point of tears for addressing his lone wolf status that he was known for avoiding like the plague.

“You sweet little thing. Come here,” Agnes breathed, bending forward as much as her stomach would allow to wrap her arms around the orphaned warlock when he walked his knees over to the settee. “I’m sorry, love. I’m the last Waterhouse too, I know how that is. But I lost my family to natural causes. You poor thing!”

“Thank you,” Jenner sniffed, hiding in her bosom and letting her comforting magic seep into him—which was odd, because it was obviously dark magic, but it didn’t have the same menacing qualities as the examples in the tunnels had possessed.

She smiled and kissed his hair, pulling away with a rub to his check and leaning into the settee as he scooted a little ways back. Cináed’s arm snaked around her when she returned to his side and his hand found her belly on instinct, holding it possessively as he skewered every stranger individually with a displeased expression. Cináed was an immensely private immortal as a general principle, and all this sudden attention was sorely uncomfortable.

Jenner couldn’t help the trail of his gaze from landing on her stomach, wiping his nose with the back of his hand as he gestured to it with the other. “That’s incredible,” he complimented, feeling like a mere parlor-trick warlock in comparison to the extraordinary feat she’d accomplished.

Agnes’s dainty hands flew up to the very top of her bump as she beamed down at it, looking back to her fellow creature of magic and giving him her biggest, proudest grin. “Thank you so much! I think so as well.”

“Alright,” Cináed interrupted, motioning for everyone to sit on the floor because they only had two seats, currently occupied by Alexander and the eyepatch boy. Once everyone was decently settled, he bore his eyes into Alexander’s, jutting his chin at him to get this started. “Talk.”

“How do you feel about Azazel?” Louis asked first, moving things speedily along because he did not want to overstay his welcome.

“I hate him,” was Cináed’s immediate response, eliciting a unanimous sigh of relief from all the baby vampires in the house.

“Why?” Louis wondered, interested in the background context of that simple but telling statement.

“Because he steals territory,” Cináed said with a hard edge in his tone, his brow coming together in hatred as he vocally regarded the eldest and most intolerable brother out of the lot. “He doesn’t know when to fucking quit.”

“Territory?” Harlock asked, beckoning Jenner over with a subtle hand when he looked over to him after speaking. His warlock obeyed and he pulled him off the floor and onto his lap, looking around him to keep eye contact with Cináed. His ancestor. _This is still weird_.

“All of Africa to himself and Azazel sticks his nose in Europe. Europe is _mine_ —it always has been—yet he’s been here for centuries. Spreading _his_ gene pool in _my_ lands, polluting my people with his blood, and I’m sick of it. But I can’t make him leave. I couldn’t take him on myself, and I won’t put myself in unnecessary danger because of Agnes and our baby. I will never leave them,” he vowed, allowing himself a small smile when Agnes laughed at his passion and batted his thigh.

“But she’s mortal?” Jenner asked, ridiculously curious as to how this couple would get around her eventual death. It was already miraculous that she was still around in general, but how long could she keep it up?

“The oldest mortal alive,” Agnes pointed out, not needing to inform the orange warlock that she’d been born from the 1500’s. “When I get too tired of keeping this borrowed immortality up, I agreed to give up my magic in exchange for true immortality. And when our child is of a wise enough age, I will give them that choice as well,” she explained, much to the blindsided gasp of the warlock.

“You’d...you’d give up...your...but…” Jenner stuttered, finding himself unable to adopt the same kind of mindset—he wouldn’t give up his love for nature and his magic for anything. Not even his deepest love, who would definitely prefer him to.

“When you’ve been around as a human for as long as I, you see things differently,” she said to the young and wily warlock, not quite expecting him to understand but voicing it regardless.

Jenner pondered how long he could keep up his borrowed immortality for—maybe with her help, he could get to that point of accepting Harlock’s offer to turn him. _Wouldn’t that be the best day of Harlock’s existence_ , he internally laughed to himself, now set on asking Agnes when they had time how she upheld her spells for so long so that he may try to copy the skills himself.

“If I can pass on some of my magic, I’ll be happy,” she added, winking at the warlock when he gaped at her like she was a Goddess from the skies. Wonderful—he understood the implication there.

“Back to your point for breaking into my home,” Cináed said to Alexander, raising his eyebrow when Alexander reactively gulped.

“Well...your brother said there wasn’t any point of him going against Azazel, and that he’d never do it alone. So, my next thought was asking my maker to do it. But I can see that you have a lot of responsibility, and things you hold very dear to you that you wouldn’t ever jeopardize, so instead I'll ask...if we were to gather every single one of your siblings together, would you fight?” Louis asked, his nails unintentionally digging into the seat of his chair when Cináed did nothing but stare.

“...Round up the family, huh? And you've thought about the fact that they might not all want to?” Cináed challenged, amused by the very imagery of asking Sukarno to not only put up with Kazimir, but fight Azazel alongside him.

“Of course I've thought about it. But...I was hoping that with you as a persuasive voice, I might avoid those rejections,” Louis sheepishly mumbled, wincing at Cináed’s sharp bark of laughter.

“Aléxandros, there are things not even I could convince my family of. The notion that fighting Azazel is a good and an intelligent idea is certainly one of them,” he chuckled, idly tracing circles over Aggie’s belly with the pads of fingers, careful to keep his perpetual claws lifted from her fragile clothing.

“But the world is in peril,” Louis reasoned heatedly, considering that more than enough for a reason to fight.

“The world’s state is of no consequence to us,” Cináed said, a thick sigh blowing past his lips. He sounded like he didn’t really want to admit that, but Louis couldn’t be sure. “Personally, I hate what’s happening. I don’t like what Azazel has done one bit, and I wish I could change it...but I know a hearty few of my siblings don’t care either way. Expecting them to is a pipe dream,” he mourned, an ankle coming up to balance over his right knee as he snuggled further into his Aggie’s side.

“You don’t all have a shared dislike of Azazel?” Louis guessed, realizing that just because he’d met two members of this family that harbored ill thoughts toward their eldest didn’t mean that the rest of them would be the same.

“Ah, well...we’ve all had our problems with Azazel,” Cináed muttered, dragging Louis out of his thoughts because he’d actually confirmed what Louis had started to doubt.

“So can’t that be exploited?” Louis pushed, physically scooting forward in his chair as he threw the idea at his original maker.

“Problems are problems. I don’t think it’s enough to start a war,” Cináed explained, the broader spectrum of truth crushing Louis’ rollercoaster of hope once more.

“Fine! Fuck the world, then! I don’t even care...can you get my lover back?” he settled for, uncaring of the disapproving glares he received from his righteous group at his self-serving request.

“Your lover?” Cináed repeated in confusion, glancing around at the anger of the group and putting things together rather quickly. “Azazel has him, doesn’t he…”

“Yes, yes he does. Azazel has my lover, Hadrian, under a lure he can’t escape—made him forget about me. My soulmate. Gone. And I-I want him back,” he sniveled, his sudden tears flowing in the great streaks he’d been withholding since he’d shown up.

“No one can escape Azazel’s lures,” Cináed said sadly, feeling a bit of pity toward one of his old creations as he imagined himself in the same position with Agnes. Technically, if Hadrian was to be the ancient Emperor of Rome, they’d had a longer relationship than his own, and that put things into perspective for him. “But I’m afraid Hadrian can’t be recovered with just me either. We’d still need my brothers and sister for a mission like that, and they’d be far less willing to accept the quest for that reason next to the saving of the world—”

“I get it,” Louis said to cut him off, unwilling to listen to the stinging words of rejection. It was hopeless, fine. He’d never get Hadrian back. He decided right then and there that he’d go die trying by himself when Agnes spoke out and stole his focus.

“Love...should we not try?” she reasoned, taking into account the fact that they can’t truly know what will happen until they get the answers for themselves.

“A beast hunt? In your condition?” Cináed expressed with a thumb stroke across her full, nurturing home of a midsection. It wasn't that he lacked confidence in her strength and power, because he knew who she was, but he always felt a twinge of worry when she said she wanted to do something dangerous. Even _without_ this added measure.

“Condition? The baby will be _fine_ , dear. It has my blood in its veins. I’m a powerful witch, Cináed, don’t doubt me. The tunnels are more than safe enough—”

“What!” Jenner squeaked, nearly tumbling right out of Harlock’s lap before he was clutched and steadied. “Tunnels—safe— _tunnels_?!” he rambled skeptically, those two words existing so far apart for him that putting them together in one sentence felt like speaking a foreign, highly tonal and hard to pronounce language. “Not to mention the gross and monstrous vampires stuck down there, those places have no air, and the dark magic that sticks to them almost drove me insane! That’s no place for a pregnant woman!” he noted passionately, his rapid listings of protest putt-putting to a stop when both Agnes and Cináed held a hand up to stop him.

“First off, those creatures heed to my commands,” Cináed scoffed, the mere thought of being overpowered by the rats of the underground nearly angering him. The warlock meant no harm, but honestly…

“Right, and I’m a wielder of that same forgotten magic, child. The power that flourishes down there sustains me. Better for me than food or water. I would have more than enough air and sustenance from its blankets,” she assured the petrified warlock, watching his face begin to believe her and nodding to help him along.

“Teach me your _ways_ ,” Jenner groaned in amazement, folding over his own thighs and dazedly staring at her with an envious and desperately pleading look.

Agnes giggled into her palms and shook her head in amusement, fixing her pale gold fringe and then meeting the Cromwell’s deep brown eyes. “Okay,” she said simply, causing an even stronger flail to wrack through his limbs. His vampire lover was having quite the time back there keeping the warlock off the ground.

“Okay…” Jenner coughed, beside himself that she’d agreed so easily to teach him the secrets of the dark, black magic of olde. _Is this one of those times where I’m going to look back and realize how naïve I’d been? Probably…_

“So...you’ll help…” Louis said with extreme caution, keeping all emotions in a little box that he wouldn’t open until he received a firm yes or no.

“I don’t particularly want to,” Cináed began, sighing to the ceiling before rolling his head over to meet his lover’s encouraging eyes. “But Agnes wants to help, so...yes,” he stated firmly, exuding that exact amount of ‘firm’ Louis had been looking for.

“Zeus, you’re forgiven!” Louis breathed to the God above, sliding out of his chair and crashing down onto the patch of floor without rug in relief.

“Now don’t get hasty, I’m not running off this very second. It’s already late in the night, and Agnes needs the rest you interrupted _and_ a full day’s sleep before I’ll let her go anywhere,” Cináed compromised, glad to see multiple nods of cooperation.

“By all means!” Louis rushed to say, freezing when Cináed’s bright blue eyes narrowed on him in an unreadable manner.

“For what it’s worth, Aléxandros,” he began, beckoning the old King over until he was bent over the settee and then planting a loving kiss upon his particularly high cheekbone. “...it’s good to see you.”

 

\---

 

Louis lay staggeringly awake on the floor of Cináed’s living room as the sun rose behind wooden window blinds, covered more extensively by light-blocking curtains, and he couldn’t seem to stop his fast-paced mind from zipping by the bullet point of his concerns. Put more simply, he was agonizing over Hadrian. Big surprise.

Though he’d been doing it nonstop ever since that horrific event, there had been a bit of an edge put on it now—he couldn’t stop thinking about Hadrian’s unattended jacket at Liam’s house. Could it really be used for the dream spell? Would he get to see him after all this heart-rending time apart? Louis had been regarding hope as a myth for all his long hours since Azazel’s abhorrent crime against Louis’ existence, but now that he had a tinge of that sacred hope, it was practically making his dead heart flutter.

Dead heart. He also wanted some blood soon, and he knew his group was pining for it as well, but it just didn’t feel right to take from zombies...that’s besides the point, though. His endless cycle of thoughts unchangeably landed back on the spell, and how long he’d have to wait until Jenner could try it again.

 _Why Jenner when you have Agnes?_ his own mind taunted to him, reminding him so very much of those times when ‘Alexander’ would speak to him like an entirely separate being. “Only I could create something so elaborate,” he muttered quietly to himself, aware that he should avoid making sounds in a room full of sleeping vampires, though...it was clear that he was the only one still mulling over awful shit.

Vampires, by nature, were riduculously difficult to awaken while the sun was in the sky, and though there were several examples of late when that hadn’t been a fact of life, it still reigned as a general characteristic. He assumed that the sun had been in the sky a large number of times when he’d been in the tunnels, but down there, it’s different—the sun will never exist in places that deep. _Except when you have it in flashlight form!_ he whined again for the hundredth time, cringing as he closed his eyes and remembered how badly they’d stung from all the blinding rays that had abused them.

He turned his neck to the side and stared down the hallway at its last door—what he could tell was Cináed and Agnes’s bedroom by their scents—and weighed the pros and cons of sneaking in there to ask the witch to perform an ancient spell for him and his lover in the near future. To connect their minds in a dream while causing a tornado in the real world. He slapped a hand over his face in defeat when it became clear to him that even if he named all the cons in the world, he’d still end up doing it.

He was crawling to the mouth of the hallway and standing to tiptoe toward their door before he’d even said his prayers. Cináed waking to an intrusion would not go over well, and Louis wasn’t familiar with the sleeping patterns of original vampires, or even how they fared in the sun...this was a terrible idea. _So was being Auron’s slut so you could stab him in the neck. Why didn’t you just go for the brain?_

 _That’s a good question_ , he answered himself, thinking about it in confusion before he thought of the obvious reason. _Because Hadrian deserves that kill. Auron is his kill._ Zeus, he really is talking to himself again.

He approached the door and squeezed his eyes shut as he wrapped his cold fingers around the somehow colder metal knob and twisted the old thing to unlatch its mechanisms. He let go when he felt the give and pushed the door open, stepping into the candlelit room and darting his gaze to their bed to assess their ambiguous levels of consciousness.

They both looked to be asleep, but Louis remained frozen in case the spell would break, don’t mind the pun. Agnes lay on her side in a white nightgown, and was the closest to the door, facing it as she sunk into the mattress and breathed deep inhales of air to supply her overworked lungs with their needed bouts of oxygen—unborn babies appeared to cause quite a hefty measure of physical drainage.

Cináed was snuggled up directly behind her, letting her use his right arm as a pillow as his left lay immobile over her hips, eternally protective hand resting underneath the mound that housed their miracle child. Louis was touched by their incredible love story, but again, it only made him miss Hadrian that much more. This scene reminded him of that one specific time in the mansion basement when Hadrian had mentioned to him that he’d imagined him pregnant before, and even though Louis knew it was an egregiously stupid thing to get emotional over, he couldn’t bloody help it.

He sniffed as he turned away from the dozed off lovers, deciding not to bother her after all, but Agnes’s calming murmur of his name wrenched him back around, his eyes zeroing in on her one cracked one as she smiled and assured him of the thing he was most worried about. “He won’t wake up, dear. You can talk to me if you’d like,” she added, flicking her wrist to motion him to shut the door and come closer.

Louis did as she’d asked and tiptoed to the bed, eyes warily glancing over to Cináed with every creak in the floorboards he accidentally caused.

“I’ve muffled our volume. You’d have to scream to wake him,” she informed with a devious glint in her eye, impressing Louis once more with her sheer force of ability. She could do just about anything, and that was only another reason why Louis needed her. “What is it, love? I know you have something to say...or you wouldn’t have snuck in here apologetically,” she chuckled, trying to control it so Cináed didn’t wake up from the vibrations in her back.

“I...I was wondering if you could perform a spell for me,” he began carefully, taking a deep breath as she just gave him a silent and expectant look. “A dream spell—to link—”

“I know the one,” she said immediately, earning a wild-eyed look from Alexander and grinning as she imperceptibly nodded her head, again making tiny movements to ensure Cináed didn’t stir and fly out of bed, teeth bared and endorphins shooting out like a sprinkler.

“You do…great!” Louis said a little too loudly, the two talkers pursing their lips nervously as Cináed groaned and shifted around in his position, his hand tracing up the bump and resting instead on the top of it before going completely still.

Both let out little sighs of relief, and met eyes again when they were sure the danger had passed. It wasn’t that Agnes was scared, by any means, it was that she didn’t need or want that dramatic scene to get the chance to play out while she struggled to neutralize it. She was too tired for that.

“So you’ll do it?” he asked, his fingers clasped under his chin in a begging gesture that he usually wouldn’t ever let himself stoop to.

“Of course. A rabbit out of a hat, that one,” she laughed, picking up on Louis’ disbelieving shock and feeling a bit guilty when she realized she’d probably just insulted Jenner, who had most definitely attempted said spell once before.

“That’s a comfort, I think,” Louis said with a breathy laugh, both elated and terrified that they had such a confident practitioner of dark magic in their midst. More like they’d intruded upon their lives and forcefully broken into _her_ midst, but details schmetails.

“Do you have a good enough object?” she asked, shifting her legs so that her crossed ankles switched spots.

“I think so…” Louis mumbled, not quite wanting to admit that all he had was a sodding jacket that he wasn't even sure would suffice.

“Well I'll do what I can with what you have. There may be some other option, too, you never know. Some similar spell...I could sense Jenner’s little book from a kilometre away. I'll take a look at it; see if there's anything I don't already know,” she yawned, blinking her weary eyes and feeling sleep start to pull her under.

“Thank you,” Louis said, not bothering to mention that terrible things seemed to happen when that book was opened—there's a good chance this witch wouldn't mind.

“Mm. Will you let me sleep in peace now?” she asked kindly, not meaning to be so abrasive but the pregnancy moodiness that came along with its predictable exhaustion were beginning to get to her and it was better for Alexander to avoid that.

“Of course—sorry,” he rushed, standing from his seat and backtracking to the door.

“Oh, and Alexander?” she added, turning him around in an instant.

“Yeah?”

“Would you blow out those candles, darling? Cináed fell fast asleep before he could, and I can't move,” she giggled, following Alexander with her eyes as he stepped around the room and blew out all the candles as per request. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Louis said now from the archway of the door, looking back to share a smile with her and then closing it as she rolled over (with great difficulty) to curl into Cináed’s chest.

Louis walked back to his designated spot on literally nothing but a floor, laying himself out flat and staring at that same spot on the ceiling, this time filled with a newfound motivation he wouldn’t have been able to revel in if he’d convinced himself not to go into the room. He had buckets of glinting, immaculate hope, and all the reasons in the world to believe he’d see Hadrian (dream or not) very, very soon. And _now_ he could sleep.

 

\---

 

Louis awoke to the whispers of lovers, that much was obvious, but it was only when he made out the whispers pertained to _parent_ lovers that he shot his eyes open, recalling all at once where he was.

“It only kicks when I put my hand over it,” Louis heard Cináed coo, turning his bleary gaze down the hall to the bedroom door that had been cracked open.

“It knows its Papa,” Agnes responded, gasping in evident pain from something baby related while Cináed whined in sympathy.

“Don't kick her _lungs_ ,” he scolded, followed by a bunch of kissing sounds that Louis had to stop himself from gagging on. _Love,_ he scoffed in his head so he wouldn't sob, finding himself unable to interrupt their little moment regardless.

“Only two more months,” Agnes sighed, the soft sounds of fabric wafting down the hall that probably meant Cináed was undressing her.

“Two more agonizing months,” Cináed chuckled, steps carrying over to the sound of an opening door, and the shriek of clothing hangers across metal.

“Oh, it's not that bad. And I know you like me like this,” she lightly accused, more fabric swishes coming from the room, along with kissing sounds and little sighs. _I should not be eavesdropping like this._

“Of course I do,” Cináed admitted, dragging what sounded like a pair of shoes across the floor. “Your hips were wide before all this. I'm in heaven now,” he snorted, the slide of palms on skin alluding that he was likely feeling up those very same hips.

“Oh stop, we have guests out there,” she chided breathlessly, a little hitch in her throat telling Louis all he needed to know about their current struggle.

“I know, I know. I'll commit the crime of covering this silky skin of yours. But just know, next chance we get I'm burying myself between these thighs, and I'm not leaving that warmth until someone pulls me out,” he warned in a low purr, apparently getting serious and dressing them both in a flurry.

Agnes had broken out into snorting giggles at his inappropriate promises, but had quieted down when the creak of the bed told Louis Cináed had finished and was now sat beside her. “What is it?”

“Nearly five hundred years with you and it’s like yesterday,” Cináed murmured, their obviously impassioned eye contact raising their heart rates.

“Five hundred years _is_ yesterday to a God such as yourself,” she reasoned, Louis shamelessly leaning over to catch the whole conversation. Original vampires...are they really Gods?

“I came to this world such a very long time ago, Aggie. Never, in all my eons, did I imagine I'd find something like you here…” Cináed said with thick emotion, pausing a bit before he could continue. “Passing on my species and genetics is one thing. That already gave me the feeling of being a Father, but...my _child_ is in here,” he stressed, assumedly dropping to his knees from the thuds and scooting in against her front. “My kind can't do this on Earth. You've given me an impossible child, and I love you both with all my heart.”

“It is a true gift we have this talk every morning, Cináed,” Agnes laughed brightly, evidently throwing her arms around her lover's neck. “I love you so very much. You always speak the most beautiful words. I'm happy to exist for you, my darling. You complete me…”

 _Zeus, this is getting heavy,_ Louis thought with a guilty cringe, deciding to make as many shifting and rousing sounds as possible to alert his intimate company. He had to laugh as he did so because everyone else around him followed in his tracks, proving that they'd all been nervously listening as well.

“No need to put on a show,” Cináed called from the bedroom, emerging into the hallway as he opened a hall closet to grab their coats. “I knew you children were awake, and I didn't care. I'm not censoring my life for the likes of you,” he chuckled, waltzing back into his room with two heavy coats on his arm.

“Well pardon us,” Louis muttered, heaving himself off the floor and switching on a few lamps to bathe the living room in a warm glow. “Can we go to Liam’s first?” he asked his group, slumping in relief when they all nodded. “Good. It’s gonna take a while to reach the southern coast anyway, and Agnes will probably enjoy a break,” he said, omitting the obvious real reason why he desired to stop by that house. They all knew anyway.

“Take a while?” Agnes challenged, shuffling down the hall in her typical duck waddle way, dressed in a similar outfit as before with little boots on her feet. “I don’t think so. I can have us there in an instant. I only need a dot on a map,” she said with a wink, her words hypothetically striking Jenner in the chest because he slapped a hand to it in tandem with a gasp.

“You’re so amazing,” the warlock whimpered, unspeakably jealous of her supremacy in magic. To use both light and dark so casually without experiencing the negative side-effects that Jenner did was unnaturally incredible, and Jenner wanted to know _everything_.

“Nonsense. I’m merely old,” Agnes brushed off, truly taking the compliment to heart and feeling that much more determined to get the night and this unprecedented journey started.

“She lies and she knows she lies,” Cináed chuckled, taking wide steps to reach her and help her the rest of the way to the settee while he packed provisions.

“Do you need any help?” Louis asked his maker, more than willing to let himself be used as a guinea pig in return for their selfless acceptance to help.

“You’d only get in my way,” Cináed jabbed, walking around their small kitchen and stuffing water canteens and fruit into the frumpy sack he’d collected.

“He’s your son too, you know,” Agnes chastised to her busied lover, causing him to turn around and give the claim some thought.

“Once removed,” he specified uncaringly, his eyes grazing over the other two present with his blood, and then back to the speechless Aléxandros. “I love all three, don’t worry,” he said with smiles to each, putting his tough exterior back on and rummaging the cabinets for anything he was missing.

“I’ll take it,” Louis said to Agnes, who smiled and painstakingly wrenched her ankles up onto the settee so she could sit cross-legged and hug her middle.

“Liam, was it?” she asked to the puppy-resemblant vampire with a delightful human under his arm, a true picture of the decade with his big afro and sideburns.

“That’s right,” Liam confirmed as Jenner presumptuously sat down beside Agnes just to be close.

“What are you doing?” Cináed snapped at him, taking one step forward before Agnes snapped her fingers at him and pointed a threatening finger.

“You settle your temper,” she commanded, gripping the warlock around the shoulder and glaring at her needlessly intense lover. “He’s just a baby.”

“Sorry…” Cináed muttered, his eyes twitching angrily at the eyepatch immortal responsible for him and then sweeping back into the bedroom for more finishing touches of unknown variety.

“Liam, there’s maps on that dresser there with a box of tacks, would you grab them?” she said to the immortal, nodding when he held them up in question. She took both collections from his outstretched hands and spread the pages out on the coffee table, asking him to point to his home so she could stick a thumbtack in it.

Louis watched Cináed come back from the room and set all the packs down by the settee, sitting himself down with an exhausted sigh and rubbing at Agnes’s back while she and the creatures involved pinpointed their destination.

“Are you really going to flash us there?” Jenner asked giddily, having never before taken that mode of transportation because his family certainly hadn’t specialized in it. To be honest, his immediates hadn’t known how. It’s complicated stuff.

“Yes, I intend to,” she verified, peaking Louis’ (and all the other clueless vampires’) interest because they were the most ignorant to magic as anything could get.

“This is going to be interesting,” Zayn chuckled, that statement being his very first since arriving to Cináed’s house. None of Louis’ group felt overly confident in speaking, and that probably wise of them. Had Louis not had a history with Cináed, he likely wouldn’t be striking up conversation either. Even with the history, it was still dodgy.

She finally smacked the tack into the wood and a strange feel in the air seeped out of her aura, magic swirling as she prepared herself for the upcoming spell. “I need to touch everyone,” she said, precipitating an amusing scramble of bodies to get their cheeks held for a second each.

Louis felt an electric shock when she touched his skin, and an obvious bind had been made that connected him to her, like she’d snapped a leash around his neck or something. Once everyone had gotten their chance to lean over the table and get lightly smacked by the witch, she closed her eyes and began a low chant that Jenner watched eagerly, already trying to internalize the words and remember them forever.

Louis quickly made sure everyone had their bags, and that Harlock had the book, and he relaxed when it was confirmed they wouldn’t be leaving anything behind—but he couldn’t relax for long, because the next thing he knew, he was on Liam’s floor in a heap under three of his friends. “Whoa!”

“What the—” Martin shouted in a fright, everyone flailing up and taking a look around their environment.

“This is…” Erakus choked, grabbing his _husband_ Marley and hauling him into his arms.

“My house,” Liam laughed in shock, jotting this down as the weirdest experience he’d ever had since turning in the year 13Something.

Eyes turned to Cináed and Agnes, all discovering the pair were on Liam’s living room couch as the original eased the groggy witch back to full awareness.

“Is she alright?” Liam asked, feeling responsible because his own home had been their point B from Scotland.

“She’s grand,” Cináed assured, kissing her cheek multiple times in quick succession until she tiredly giggled. “She usually wouldn’t have any type of reactions to using her magic, but her pregnancy has made things a little harder for her. It’s alright, though. Little things aren’t a problem, it’s the back to back mind-reading and then transporting that did this. Those are huge spells.”

“She doesn’t even _use_ spells. I need brick dust, lodestone, Spanish moss, and poppy seeds just to hit vampires with _momentary_ blasts of sunlight. _That_ is a spell. Agnes is different—it’s just...her. Her essence,” Jenner argued, cocking his head to the side when Agnes chuckled at his assumption.

“Same incantations, dear, just some I say in me head. Also, I use dark magic—I don’t need anything from the Earth to cast anything. That’s light stuff. Dark comes from the otherworld,” she informed, taking a second to wonder if she’d said too much.  

“That makes so much sense,” Jenner said blankly, a kaleidoscope of instances in which he’d had dark magic inside himself flashing behind his thoughts. It had definitely felt foreign to his known world, and now he knew why. It _was_ foreign.

“You’re stronger than me in that respect, Jenner Cromwell. I gave up the sun long ago—I can’t do anything with its power,” she confessed, smiling when Jenner took on a facial expression like she’d just given him everything he could ever want on a silver platter.

“Don’t compare yourself to basic old me, I’ll never amount to you,” Jenner pleaded, hard-pressed to accept a compliment from such a legendary master of the art.

“It’s true! I can feel sunlight inside your vampire, little one. I know that means he can walk in it if you make it so. That is a rare gift; not one many warlocks have. To harness the sun, and put it in a place it is most damaging without any danger to the subject...is very impressive,” she said, obviously because sunlight inside Harlock’s blood should most certainly do horrid things to him, but Jenner’s love and magic protected him from harm. The Cromwell was well worth taking on the status of being her pupil. She’d teach him everything.

“Thank you,” Jenner whimpered, astoundingly proud of himself now that he thought about it.

“Just don’t dabble in darkness too long, or you won’t be able to give Harlock that gift of daylight anymore,” she warned, figuring it was probably a favourite thing of theirs; at least something that consistently came in handy.

“Understood,” Jenner quipped with a sharp nod, the pair falling into silence as their things to mention came to its end.

“Where’s the jacket?” Louis asked strenuously, forcing everything back on him with buckets of guilt. He didn’t mean to, but this was why they’d come here. He needed it.

“It’s a _jacket_?” Agnes cackled, sharing a knowing glance with Jenner over the uselessness of such an item. That wasn’t nearly enough.

“You can’t do it?” Louis whined as though he’d expected that answer, barely noticing when the black wool jacket was dropped into his lap by Erakus and Marley. He felt it with a searching hand and flung his head down to skewer it with wide eyes, instantly clutching it close to his heart while he inhaled its addictive scent— _Hadrian_. It smelled exactly like him: the pages of an old book, lavender, tree bark, heaven. He missed this scent so much, and to have it back was both blesséd and curséd. Its owner was still missing.

“Is, uh...is that jacket an object of—”

“No, it’s not,” Louis said dejectedly to answer Agnes’s question about sodding ‘deep significance,’ grudgingly accepting the spell was impossible as long as he could keep breathing in the scent at his nostrils. He brought it away from his face as the room lost its luster in awkward silence, all likely sympathetic of their King’s sadness, and caressed the garment’s lines and edges like they were the skin of his lover. Probably looked a bit odd, but until his onlookers were in his position, he wouldn’t permit them to make any judgments on his behavior.

He came across something hard and bulky in the coat’s softness and perked his eyebrows up curiously, fingers finding their way into the inside pocket to grasp the unknown object, a raw and guttural gasp searing down his windpipes when he figured out what it was. Everyone jolted at the unexpected dying-animal-noise, and Zayn jumped for joy when Louis pulled it out for everyone to see.

Harry’s sun necklace.

“That’ll work,” Agnes said confidently, now tuning into its obvious importance and wondering why she hadn’t felt it in the air before. Probably all these damn drainages.

“Yeah,” Louis choked, letting the pendant drop down from its chain in his grasp as it swung back and forth between his teary eyes. _This’ll work._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Badass witch will most definitely come in handy time and time again. Jenner couldn't handle the powerful stuff he hadn't trained for. Anges, obviously, doesn't think it harder than lifting a finger. This is a huge advantage, no shit no shit.  
> I'm not going to flood you with Jenner progression scenes, cuz it's not very crucial to the plot, but you should know that whenever they have even a little bit of downtime, that is what Agnes and Jenner are doing in the background, alright? It's happening a bunch, but I don't have the time (and neither do you) to witness every session lol.  
> Also, I'm STILL not done with 18, and I cannot believe that, but I just did a shit ton on it, and i'm feeling great. So little by little.  
> Peace peace <3
> 
> Oh, and also--- remember when Agnes said her family died of natural causes? Yeah. She was LYING. This is an excerpt from Cináed and Agnes's story (which I wrote a fuck ton of, btw) 
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Agnes was confident she was awake, but this interaction was starting to feel more and more like a dream. What was this creature and how did he have a basis of comparison for her kind? “You must have met many of us then?” she asked, trying to get the stranger to spill details before she gave too much information over.
> 
> “I know the warlocks of history. Few witches here and there, but you're more rare in the grand scheme. It's why your kind is dying out—the life-givers are frightfully outnumbered. It's also why you stay in clans; you can't guarantee breeding outside of them. But you're all alone...why is that?” he asked with nosy interest, single-handedly controlling the conversation while he let her know he knew exactly what he was talking about. 
> 
> “I killed my clan,” Agnes spat, swinging her legs over the front side of the couch she'd been placed on to plant her feet on the floor. 
> 
> “Did you?” the man (sort of man) asked in happy surprise, the glint in his eyes almost looking like pride. 
> 
> “They were holding me back,” Agnes grumbled with a defensive shrug, raising a fist that her index and thumb were sticking out from. “So I squished them,” she said, demonstrating that by smushing the pads of the mentioned digits together. 
> 
> “Oh, I like you,” the stranger purred, moving himself over to Agnes’s couch make an advance. 
> 
> “Touch me and I curse you,” she warned, her murderous eyes training on the unfairly beautiful and inhuman beast beside her. 
> 
> “I already have touched you, my magical bean,” the man lilted, waving his arm about their surroundings as he smirked at her indignance. “How do you think you got here? In my arms,” he said, answering his own question and leaning in daringly close. "If I hadn't gotten you out of there, those humans would have killed you. Show some respect."
> 
> “Just what are you?” Agnes asked before anything else, staring in a trance at the devilish fangs he had in his mouth, because that word was the only thing to accurately describe them. Fangs.
> 
> “A visitor,” the stranger stated, taking an apparent pleasure in being elusive. 
> 
> “To where, England?” Agnes snorted, aware that he meant something much greater but refusing to fall victim to smug taunts. 
> 
> “Your world.”
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Mehehehe. She's a dark one. They met after she'd zapped to a tree to escape being burned at the stake, but she'd used up all her energy. Cináed had been at the base of that tree and caught her when she fell. So, that's how they met. Also, the next few lines after your world was Agnes asking him what he (his species) was called. And he answered. But I'm not gonna TELL YOU AHAHAHAHA. It might come up in the series, might not.


	14. Kiss Me Until It's All Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so...I don't know why, but an entire scene has been deleted from this chapter. I think I may have done it...but I have no accessible memory of trashing it. It was their journey into the tunnels, essentially. There was a lot of good conversation with Cináed and Louis, Anges and Jenner, Harlock stuff, Agnes made like this magical sort of staircase that only she and Jenner could travel on to get down into the cave, and part of his training was not letting it crawl up his legs. Marley had originally went for the staircase, but Anges tried to stop him since only magical creatures can walk on it, but Jenner stopped her from explaining, egging him on to do it anyway. Marley did, and he took one step out and literally fell straight down into the cave, face-planting on the bottom while everyone laughed their asses off. Then Erakus cried out and dove after him, yelling up at them all kinds of insults for the prank. Then they all got down, and Agnes like shoved tunnels apart with magic to widen them, and Jenner was like "where the fuck were you when I was having panic attacks" kind of thing, so she made every passage big enough to walk through, then they traveled down the built-in stairs to the Anticus tunnels.  
> THEN she told Cináed to give her his blood. So, at some point, Agnes will be talking about how black magic manifests only when the caster makes it so, like the STAIRCASE, so just know she's talking about the stairs SHE made, not the stone ones that lead into the anticus. I don't know where the fuck that entire section went, it's not in any google or word doc, and it's not in the deleted scenes doc either. I can easily see myself going "UGH THIS IS SHIT" and highlighting it in a moment of anger and erasing it, but looking back, I shouldn't have. It was fine? But nothing I can do about it now. So...yeah. I just...REALLY didn't feel like rewriting all that. I may in the future, but forgive me, it's not important enough right now to recreate. That is what happened, though, so you know. *shrugs*  
> Actually, thinking about it, I may have deleted that paragraph about her explaining the stairs entirely because I knew everything else was gone, and it wouldn't make any sense. Idk man. Fuck it.   
> Oh, man. MAN. I cannot wait for you to get to Jerusalem. I'm anxious for it. We've got a bit before that, but oohohhorgefeghf uhfwefoisfiworfw. The most unlikely sequence of events in that city. It's a lot of fun. ;)

“Give me your blood,” Agnes said to Cináed upon stepping all the way into the Anticus tunnels, at the front of the line and staring straight ahead with an upturned palm.

Jenner watched closely as Cináed slashed his forearm with his thumb claw and presented her his dripping arm. She looked over and pressed her palm up against the wound, rubbing it in a circle to cover her whole hand and then stepping up to the tunnel wall.

She murmured something under her breath that Jenner didn't quite catch and then slapped her hand against the wall with a sharp outcry of exertive force, calmly removing her hand afterward and giving it to Cináed so he could lick all his blood off her skin.

“What the bloody hell did you just do?” Jenner asked, having felt a hint of something but not knowing what it entailed.

“Essentially? Called for Cináed’s brother. The magic here will carry his scent right to him, no doubt about that,” she said, slightly giggling whenever Cináed’s tongue tickled her palm.

“Amazing. But how can you stand this place?” Jenner asked with a wavering voice as his limbs reactively shook, astounded someone could find contentment in such an awful environment. Dark magic was laughably beyond him, but he hated that—he wanted to bend it to his will more than anything. Is that bad?

“I can see why this affects you so greatly. Haven't been in these tunnels for centuries,” Agnes cooed to the trembling Jenner, promptly breaking apart the strongest tendrils of magic that had coiled around the warlock. “Shoo! Shoo shoo!” she snapped at them, actually glaring at them until they slid away in submission.

“What can you see? I can't see anything, I just feel it,” Jenner informed, looking around at the little resounding tickles he felt on his skin and wondering what visible form they had.

“Dark magic is only seen when one unveils it, like the staircase earlier, or by one who knows it,” Agnes replied, leaning against the wall and letting its substance feed off her energy as she in turn took strength from it. “To most, it looks like tangible darkness, yes? A density of which you can't ever grasp,” she said, beckoning Jenner when he and everyone around him nodded their heads. “See what I see.”

When Jenner took hold of her hand, it was like someone had flipped a switch in his eyes, and he was taken aback by the excessive thickets of vines and thorny tentacle-like things that snuck along every inch of the tunnels. “What is all that?”

“Ill-intended magic,” Agnes said fondly, as though she considered it adorable.

“So, black magic,” Jenner said obviously, as that was the very definition.

“This is the form it takes. Light is like sun rays, right? Well, this is the opposite,” she said with a shrug, letting go of Jenner’s hand and hypothetically taking his knowledgeable glasses off with the motion.

“How long do you have to use black magic to see it like that?” he asked, touching the wall and cringing away from its sticky texture, just like that spiderweb feeling from last time.

“You have to be of sorcerer status,” she said, booping Jenner on the nose when he hummed in thought. “And how do you gain that status?” she asked as though she were a professor reciting questions to her students.

“For the light, saving a life with your magic. Dark, killing someone with it,” he said surely, having saved many lives in the past with the use of magic. The first time had been an unforgettable day—he felt like a true warlock that day.

“Precisely. You should be very proud of your warlock, Harlock. He has a truly pure heart,” Agnes said to the eyepatch immortal with the fire torch, her words causing an instant grin of pride. “The fact that he was even able to _attempt_ a dream spell at his age and, pardon the potential insult, magical naivete, is miraculous. Fighting through the suffocating magic down here multiple times is also noteworthy. He's one of a kind.”

“It did go through,” Louis said from his seated position on the dirt, having tuned out a vast majority of the magic jabbering but had snapped back when he’d heard the term ‘dream spell.’ “Not for long, but it worked.”

“Incredible, see? That's an especially old spell. No doubt from that book of yours. Quite overpowering for someone who’s never come in contact before. I'm proud of you,” she said, taking Jenner in her arms and patting his head when he nearly sobbed from all the compliments.

“Incoming,” Cináed sighed in irritation, having smelled his brother thirty seconds ago and having refused to mention it. His arrival was upon them now, however, and Cináed figured a heads-up was in order.

Louis could detect Max as well and it wasn't long after that the Elders began to one by one, eventually leaving only Johnny completely out of the sensory loop. Louis honestly saw Johnny as a hero of his kind—what common human would meet the face of their strife with such bravery? Johnny was a legend.

“Cináed!” Max lilted as he rounded the corner, faking a mass proportion of his happiness to hide his terror. “Thrém—”

Cináed cut Max off by dashing to him and slamming him into the wall by his neck (evidently a favourite action of his, but that went for most vampires), hissing in his face with embedded claws under his chin. _Well they seem close…_

“Thought you'd just rat my location and get away with it, did you... _brother_ ,” Cináed snarled, his threatening and dominant tone going straight to Louis’ cock— _no, not that,_ he means his heart.

Max started desperately groveling in a language even Louis had never heard before in his existence, which probably meant it wasn't of this world, and Cináed was quick to steer him off that track.

“Not Ualarhi, you coward. In fucking English. So these creatures can understand your frantic excuses. What's wrong, little brother? I know you speak English. I know you fucking speak it,” Cináed growled, the whole group eating this exchange up like it was their last meal.

“ _Ea vashilehr mi saakranei_ —”

“Fucking _English_ , or I'll tear you to pieces!” Cináed barked, knocking his brother’s head back into the wall and holding his clawed hand out behind him like he was nanoseconds from slashing out.

“Fine! Fine, fine, _fine_ ,” Max groaned heatedly, letting himself be held against the wall without struggle to help himself out in the end. “Of _course_ I speak English. And I'm sorry, alright? I wouldn't have told just anyone, surely you can see we’re under special circumstances,” he reasoned, denying the temptations to glance over at his daughters, whom through his peripherals, he could see were panicking over his well-being.

“And surely you can see I'm fucking busy!” Cináed replied just as incredulously, gesturing to Agnes who was leaned against the opposite wall and closest to them in the line.  

Max allowed that encouraged glance to transpire, and once he locked onto the politely waving woman, he found he couldn't look away. “ _Ankhrazeth_! That woman, she...she…” he trailed, dropping his jaw at her stomach and flicking his eyes between her and Cináed in wonderment.

“ _That woman_ carries a cross-species conception in her womb, _of mine_ , and she _should_ be in bed right now—nurturing that miracle in peace—but instead, _because of you and your flapping mouth_ , we've been pulled out of carefully constructed secrecy like fucking weeds, and now we have to save the planet?! _I don't even like the planet_!” he roared, his fist making savage contact with his brother’s face in a bout of uncontrolled rage.

Max grunted in pain and recovered as fast as he could, holding his cheek and straightening back up to throw his arms around his brother’s neck in jubilation. “Congratulations!” he cried in too high a pitch for Louis to tolerate, dishing out several similar declarations of approval to his stoic brother.

Cináed sighed in exasperation and pinched the bridge of his nose around his brother’s arm, finally giving in and returning the embrace that had been forced upon him. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, allowing himself a small moment of smiling with his brother to celebrate the news.

“What's her name?” Max asked, looking to her as she waddled forward to reach them.

“Agnes,” she said with a smile, grasping the brother’s forearm in the typical vampire way to formally introduce herself.

“Agnes, it's a pleasure to meet my brother's mate, and what a stunning creation you're growing, it's unheard of; I'm very happy for you both. You'll have to introduce me in another few months or so. My name is Max, and I dwell in Ameri—”

“Max?” Cináed repeated in disbelief, his face looking to be a combination of confused and highly amused. “ _Max_?”

“Yes, Max. My daughter named me Max,” he said flippantly, catching Stacey when she finally flung herself at him in response to the recognition. “Hi sweetie...hey, what's my name?” he asked to Cináed, thinking he might get the mystery solved with his brother here.

“I don't remember,” Cináed grumbled as he crossed his arms, not sounding too proud of himself for admitting that.

“Aw, that's a shame,” Max shrugged passively, furrowing a many pair of eyebrows because few understood how he could be so fine with that. Øvind in particular would be in shambles to hear it, considering he'd almost lost himself forever over that very same thing.

“Is it that complex?” Stacey asked in pensive thought, ruminating on why and how his own brother could forget as Max had.

“What I do remember is that it was entirely too long,” Cináed explained, his common frown softening when Agnes yawned and cuddled into his side. “Cutie pie,” he said just for her, idly playing with her hair as ‘Max’ scoffed in disagreement.

“It was not that bad. It was the name my humans gave me! I shouldn't have forgotten,” Max said distractedly, thinking harder about it than ever before and physically sighing when he evidently gave up. He then turned his attention to Stacey and rushed to assure her look of disappointment. “Max suits me better anyway, doesn't it darling?” he cooed to her, smiling when she did. “I love my name, thank you.”

“Alright, alright!” Cináed intercepted, walking Agnes over to the densest part of the group and easing her down to sit against the wall and take some of the pressure off her legs. “We still need to go, _Max_ ,” he said, the two facing off while everyone else sat down diligently and watched the show. “You get Aguta, I'll get Akna—”

“Whoa! No, no, no, _you_ get Aguta— _I'll_ get Akna,” Max contended, crossing his arms defiantly when Cináed pelted him with a smirk.

“You got problems with Aguta?” Cináed jeered, specifically intrigued by that revelation, but he supposed he should have figured.

“He's got problems with _me_!” Max defended hotly, scoffing off the insinuation that _he'd_ started that mess.

“Well so do I...I don't think our sister will be very happy to see you either,” Cináed noted reasonably, raising an eyebrow as he silently brought up _that one time._

“That was a long time ago, Cináed. We've mended that. I'll have better luck with her, just trust me,” Max asserted unwaveringly, their eyes locked as they challenged each other regarding who would collect whom. “Where's Utul when you need him?” he huffed in exasperation, rather wishing he had that brother here to mediate everything flawlessly as he always does.

“In Africa. We'll get him next,” Cináed said impatiently, trying to steer the discussion back on track when Max opened his mouth again.

“Africa? He's in Africa?”

“Yeah, as far as I know, Egypt. Below one of the Giza pyramids. Now can we go? I'll get Aguta,” Cináed pressed, sighing in relief when Max shook off the inquisition and nodded his head. “Alright, let's make a barrier,” he said, walking to the first intersection and slicing his arm open again.

Max joined him and the pair walked their bleeding arms back and forth across the hall, making sure there was a thick line of their blood that stretched from either side.

“What are you…” Louis began, trying to see a reason for that and finding nothing sensical.

“Dwellers won't bother you if our scents clog up this tunnel. They might get close since we won't actually be here, but they won't cross this line,” Cináed said with absolute verdict, knowing this for a fact because there wasn't anything dwellers feared more than his family. “It would go against their instincts.”

_That dwellers term again! What the fuck does that mean?_

“Yeah, and instincts is all they have,” Max sighed, holding his arm to his chest when the lines were finished and letting the skin heal.

Cináed trotted over to Agnes and knelt before her, taking her face in his hands and sealing his lips over hers to say goodbye. “I'll be back in a couple of hours, okay? I don't know where Aguta is, or how long it'll take to convince him, but if he fights me on it, I'll give it up and come back to you without him,” he said, stroking his witch’s cheeks with his thumbs as she smiled cooperatively.

“Try your best, love. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine down here. Both of us,” she added, grinning when Cináed knelt even lower and rubbed his face against her stomach.

“Goodbye, little one. Your father loves you, and he'll be right back,” he whispered with a kiss over Agnes’s dress, making Stacey grip her chest like her heart was trying to burst out of it. “Alright, Max. Is Aguta in Canada or Alaska?” he asked, standing back to full height and denying the impulse to stay at Agnes’s side.

“Was Alaska, now it's Canada,” Max said with certainty, asking a follow-up question of his own. “I gotta go to southern Mexico, and if not there, I'll check Guatemala. Do we meet back up in the trechía or come straight here?”

“Straight here, we don't know if we'd finish at the same time.”

“Alright, you ready?” Max asked, preparing himself to run as fast as their species possibly could.

“Yeah. You guys hang tight, okay? We'll be back soon,” Cináed said, sparing a special smile to his lover before departure.

“We'll be waiting,” Agnes replied, blowing Cináed a small kiss, and with that, the originals were gone.

“Now what do we do?” Niall asked because he certainly didn't have any ideas, absentmindedly playing with the torn strips on the knee of Zayn’s black jeans.

“We wait until the sun is coming up...and then Agnes, if I've assumed this correctly, will take me to Hadrian’s dream,” Louis said hopefully, pleading the witch with his desperate eyes to follow along and accept the request.

“Aye,” Agnes laughed with a nod, pulling in her ankles to cross and tuck under her thighs while she held onto her restless midsection. “That I can do.”

 

\---

 

Louis, bound by the ropes of impatient desperation, had resorted to counting the minutes to sunrise. Max and Cináed had been gone for four hours now, Agnes had taken two separate naps, Jenner had practiced touching the magic on the walls to attempt befriending it, and conversation had rippled through the group in small spurts of mentionable topics, but all the while, Louis had been silently counting every single second as it passed. He was actually impressed with his ability to devote himself to one stagnant purpose; usually that kind of sufferable process wouldn’t have had a chance to work. This is not usually.

Agnes was currently humming some old tune to her baby as Jenner pulled invisible black magic from the walls and bounced it back and forth between his hands, and once the last second had been counted, Louis shot up like a spring, making everyone closest to him bite back screeches.

“Louis?” Tanner asked warily, reaching out for his leg before Martin reeled his arm back in with a discouraging shake of his head. Never touch a wild animal.

“I have to check the sun,” Louis blurted, racing up the stairs without waiting for any kind of recognition.

“Oh dear,” Agnes chuckled in understanding, snapping her fingers at the startled Jenner to begin the preparations for the spell. “He’ll be back rather quickly I imagine. Give me that book of yours,” she requested, Stacey taking over because she had it in her bag, dutifully fishing it out for the witch.

She handed the book to Agnes, but the witch wrapped her fingers around her wrist instead to get her attention. “You’re his Mother, aren’t you?” she asked, having picked up on her behavior toward Alexander without Cináed ever bringing it up.

“Louis’, yeah,” Stacey said, kneeling to the witch’s level so she didn’t have to strain upward to keep eye contact.

“Alexander calls himself Louis?” Agnes asked, realizing in shame they hadn’t had much time to focus on basic things of that variety. She really hadn’t known to listen for another name, though.

“I named him Louis. He was Alexander in his past life,” she said, having come to terms with the mind-bending truth of her son immediately after Troy had been taken care of, because it was either get with the times, or lose her mind in the face of it.

“What an incredible story you have,” Agnes said with a friendly smile, giving her bump a pat as Stacey beamed down at it. “Any tips?” she asked the warm-hearted woman with a light chuckle, thinking maybe she could get a heads-up on what to expect.

“With birth?” Stacey asked to specify the type of tips she was to bestow.

“That and motherhood in general,” Agnes said, finding herself entertained by the fact that she, a five-hundred-year-old witch, was asking a young vampire woman how to handle life.

“Well...birth, as painful as it is, is almost the easy part,” Stacey snorted, sitting fully down on her butt and balancing the book on her lap because she could tell they would be talking about this until Louis returned. “You won’t ever sleep again once your baby is here. They’ll keep you up constantly, but as long as you listen with your ears and your heart, you’ll know how to respond to it. Babies will tell you what they want, most of the time, and you’ll learn what different ear-splitting screams signify. If your baby is hungry, feed it; if its scared, coddle it. Pretty simple, really. Just draining,” she informed, a fond look of reminiscence crossing her features as she thought back to her time with an infant Louis.

“Right, right...I just don’t know what kind of things it will need to begin with. The mysterious species part is very perplexing,” Agnes laughed, ever so curious to see just what her and Cináed had created together and the type of care it would require.

“Do you mean what it'll eat?” Stacey asked, realizing that it was a good question if the baby would be half original vampire.

“Yeah, and it won't be able to tell me,” Agnes reasoned with a chuckle, aware that her worries were minimal because she'd figure it out either way. She'd have to.

“Well are you...you know…” Stacey said privately, a point to each of her own breasts to illustrate what she meant.

“Oh! Yeah, I am,” Agnes confirmed, a few instances coming to mind in which she was uncomfortably leaky in the chest area, which then led to things she will not speak of.

“Your baby will probably need that then, or I don’t think your body would be doing it,” Stacey guessed, seeing no reason for a woman’s body to lactate if it didn’t need to, magical and highly unique pregnancy or not.

“That’s what Cináed and I thought as well...dunno, guess we’ll see, huh?” she sighed, stifling her yawn when ‘Louis’ bounded down the stairs and into the tunnel like a rampaging bull.

“Do the thing!” he snapped, backtracking his rude approach to the situation and clearing his throat in regret. “I mean...can you...can you—”

“Do the thing?” Agnes snickered with a cooperative nod, finally taking the book from Stacey’s lap and seeing her off with a knee rub. “Alright, let’s take a look at this,” she said, fishing around for the glasses in her apron pocket and sticking them on her nose.

“You need glasses?” Jenner cackled, quite confounded that a witch of her stature, who could probably stop time if someone asked her to, hadn’t figured out the perfect eyesight thing quite yet. Nevertheless, he hunkered down in trepidation when she tilted the book sideways to open it, fearing the chaos that would follow the opening of that dastardly thing. “What the…”

As though it were an innocent copy of Les Misérables, Agnes popped the cover open without a single glitch in the air, licking her fingers and flicking through the pages as she peered through her lenses at the spells it held, rendering the group speechless because they’d all expected the same tornado to blast through their environment, but….Nothing. Nothing happened at all.

“How do you exist?” Jenner breathed, a slight shiver rattling his bones as the released magic made a beeline for him.

“Get back here,” she said to the straggler bundle of black magic, wrangling it back into the book and turning a page to flatten it into where it had escaped from. “Testy bastard,” she muttered, scouring the book for the dream spell just to make sure it was the one in her head. “Sit across from me, dear,” she said to Louis, still not taking her eyes off the book as she snapped her fingers for him to sit down.

“Right,” Louis said, preemptively removing the necklace from around his shoulders and holding it in a tight fist while she worked to find the right page.

“It was towards the—”

“Got it!” she quipped before Jenner could finish, making one quick sweep of the incantation and then slapping the book closed conclusively, tossing it to the side like it was a useless piece of junk while she trained her concentration on Louis. She drew a circle in the dirt between them with her fingernail, making a few extra symbols and then holding her palm out for Hadrian’s necklace.

Louis gulped and dropped the metal sun into her hand, trying not to flinch when she slapped her other hand on his forehead without warning. She seemed to study both him and the necklace at once, and the tunnels slightly lightened as she pulled a worrisome amount of its darkness into her skin, giving her the opposite kind of glow that Jenner harnessed in his spell-casting. Whereas he looked like a golden, sparking son of Zeus, Agnes looked more like the dreary shadow of Hades, her skin and aura darkening as though she was under the surface of The River Styx. _Wonderful._

She pulled her hand off his face and returned the necklace, inclining her head to his forearm and making a mime-like slashing motion over her own to demonstrate her meaning. Louis nodded sharply and dug into his skin with his claw, lathering the necklace in his blood just as he’d done the dagger. Agnes snapped and held her hand out to the torch, stealing half of its flame as it instantly flew to her, and Harlock visibly buckled under the shock of having the torch in his hands affected from so far away.

Once the flame was in her hand, she made it grow larger as Jenner had, pointing down to the circle she’d made as she began the chant that which would let all this happen. Louis immediately set the necklace down in the borders of the circle and Agnes’s mumbling chants turned to dominant shouts, the fire launching up to the ceiling and then Louis was out.

Jenner took his face out of his elbows and peeked at the aftermath of the eruption, finding Louis dead to the world on his side while Agnes continued to quietly hum and repeat the chant to keep the link open. Her eyes were open but glassy, and they didn’t seem to see any one thing, the witch having sacrificed herself as a vessel to the spell—devoted her very soul to ensure its success. Jenner took note of all this with a student eye and stored it away for later reference, sitting down bravely beside her and watching every single little detail of the process she displayed to somewhat teach himself how to do this next time. _She’s just...incredible._

 

***

 

_Louis opened his confused eyes to find the ceiling of his and Hadrian’s Fortwright mansion, and he shot up in intense comprehension of his circumstance, discovering he’d been lying on the living room couch (that wasn’t destroyed) like his prior life had been nothing more than a dream. Except he was in the dream. This felt more real than any of his dream-sharing ever had, and he figured Agnes Waterhouse’s unchallenged supremacy of her kind was to credit._

_His nose searched for his lover, but he was hard to pinpoint when Louis was so overwhelmed by his general scent being all around him—something he’d missed more than he can ever put into words. The jacket did nothing in comparison to this Hadrian-scented mansion he was gratefully standing in._

_At a rate he couldn’t have predicted, the unmistakable tones of ‘Year Endless’ began to roll out from the music room, and Louis’ heart melted straight out of his sternum to hear it. It was nowhere near the level of complexity that he played that song with, which was proof it and of itself that it was Hadrian at the keys, but Louis found he almost couldn’t make himself move toward the sound, afraid that his lover’s presence, even in a dreamscape, was a mirage._

_When he reminded himself that this golden opportunity wouldn’t last forever, because the real world’s clock was always ticking, Louis forcibly shuffled his feet along the floorboards, gripping the front of his shirt over his chest and uselessly fixing his hair to be semi-presentable. He reached the arch of the doorway with closed eyes to guard himself from potential disappointment, quickly opening them regardless of his fears, and what he saw did not fail him. Hadrian was right there._

_“Hadrian,” he breathed without thinking, the vampire in question swiveling around in surprise and adopting a rather defensively wary expression. “You’re really here.”_

_“Who the fuck are you?” Hadrian demanded as fall-away strands of hair escaped the confines of his ponytail, the startled vampire scrambling from the piano stool and taking a few measured steps back._  

_“Hadrian, it’s me...” Louis responded with a heartbroken chuckle he was sure Hadrian didn’t understand, only crossing the threshold to lean himself against the wall furthest from his broken lover and configure how he would jog his memory. He’d done it to Auron—he could do it to Hadrian._

_“I’ve seen you before...in Rome,” Hadrian realized as his face turned pensive and thoughtful, downcast eyes darting back and forth like he was reading a riddle written in the air._

_“Many times. You know me, Hadrian. Try and remember,” Louis said, eyeing a guitar on a stand to his right and walking over to pick it up._

_“What’s your name?” Hadrian asked, brow furrowed as he guarded himself behind the bulky piano._

_“Alexander...Louis…Louixander, take your pick,” Louis listed with a shrug, absentmindedly plucking the chords for ‘Greensleeves’ as he studied Hadrian’s face for recognition. “And your name isn’t just Hadrian. It’s Harry, too. Do you remember that name? Harry?” he asked, sending his lover into an obvious whirlwind of a thought train._

_“Harry…” the Roman repeated, almost as though he was tasting the flavour of the name on his tongue. “Why the fuck are you playing my guitar?” he blurted in exasperated confusion, shutting up the longer the intro went on because he knew in his heart that he should know exactly why—that he should be ashamed he didn’t._

_Louis said nothing and took Hadrian’s silence as a chance to sing out the verses of their special song, his scratchy voice broken with emotion floating through the air and hopefully penetrating Hadrian’s fuzzed ears._

_“Alas, my love, you do me wrong,_

_To cast me off discourteously;_

_And I have loved you oh so long,_

_Delighting in your company…”_

_Hadrian’s eyes had flown to the stranger as he’d begun to sing, the very song invoking an onslaught of emotions he didn’t understand, but was instinctively desperate to. “Why do I know you?” he asked, continuing to stare when the boy only replied with another verse._

_“Greensleeves was my delight,_

_Greensleeves was my heart of gold,_

_Greensleeves was my heart of joy,_

_And who...but my laddy Greensleeves?”_

_Hadrian saw jarring visions of himself on his own couch, singing that very same song with that very same lyric change to the seraphic creature before him, and then long before that, singing it in another time and place to the very same boy, and he began to understand who he was looking at. Alexander the Great. “Amans…” he whispered, knowing full well that he was seeing his lover and could call him as such._

_“I have been ready at your hand,_

_To grant whatever thou wouldst crave;_

_I have waged both life and land,_

_Your love and goodwill for to have…”_

_All at once, it all came back. Like a leak in the dam breaking the stone wall to bits: Auron, Azazel, the lure he’d been trapped in, Martin and Tanner chained to walls, New York, Louixander, kissing in his hedge maze, writing an essay of his life, truth or dare, turning Louis and awakening his vampire, Tahoe and the Sparrows, the music festival, the morgue, passionately breaking the mansion, Liam and his garden, the hippie van, Harlock’s party room, and Louis, Louis, Louis, “LOUIS!” he screeched as he flew over the piano, the old King just barely getting the time to launch the guitar across the room to accept his arms._

_“It’s about fucking time, you prat,” Louis sobbed into Hadrian’s neck, letting loose every heavy emotion he’d been plagued with since this diabolical plan was put into action. “I missed you so much, my Harry,” he wailed, his tears soaking the front of Harry’s shirt as he struggled to remain stood._

_“Louis, my love. My dear, sweet Louis. Are you really here?” Harry asked in fascination, pulling back as far as Louis would allow to look into those mismatched eyes that he FORGOT. “How could I…. You’re so beautiful, Louixander,” he whispered with a teary choke, transfixed by the flawless vision of his eternal love._

_“I’m here, Harry. I’m really here, I promise,” Louis assured, dragging them both down onto the ground and causing quite the harsh landing in doing so. “Harry, are you okay out there? What’s happ—”_

_“Louis, I’m a predator!” Harry realized in disgust, trying to back away from Louis before he was yanked back with a Kingly hand wound in his curls._

_“Now you listen to me,” Louis snapped two inches from his lover’s panicking face, resisting the temptation to slap him across the cheek because he felt he should save that for an emergency. “Whatever you’re doing up there right now is not you,” he stressed, shaking Harry’s shoulders when he didn’t respond quick enough. “Do you get that? Auron isn’t even himself—”_

_“Auron,” Hadrian growled, horrified at the brotherly affection and love they’d been showering each other with under Azazel’s control. “We’re brothers again…”_

_“Yeah, I know, I saw—”_

_“You were right there!” Harry shouted at the top of his lungs, slamming Louis down against the floor and hovering above him while his tears flowed incessantly down onto his throat. “You right in front of me, and I didn’t see you. You were right there! And I didn’t know who you were,” he sobbed, huge wracking heaves making him appear to be suffering from hyperventilation. “Martin and Tanner, they...they…”_

_“Yes! You forgot me! Martin and Tanner got hurt! But it wasn’t your fault!” Louis urged as he slapped two strong hands on either side of Harry’s twitching face, forcing their eyes to stay locked on each other and hopefully calm this mental and emotional chaos. “You have to listen to me, alright? It’s okay. It's all okay. Nobody blames you for what your brother did, and we're all trying our best to fix it. Now, listen...we don’t have much time here; this is a spell, and it will inevitably disappear. And when you wake up, you won’t remember—”_

_“No, Louis!” Harry wailed in torment, crashing down atop his chest and gripping onto him with all ten of his claws. “I can’t forget you again. I won’t. I just got you back, I don’t wanna lose you agai—”_

_Louis sighed in agitation and extended his fangs, slapping Harry’s hair away from his neck and trapping the skin in his teeth to force some sense into him. He bit down hard and rolled his eyes relievedly from Harry’s responsive whine of submission, drinking fast as Harry grinded down against him in encouragement._

_“Louis, you feel so good,” Harry moaned, temporarily forgetting the major issues at hand and allowing himself to come undone by his addictive lover, chasing his orgasm and inviting it in like it was an old friend. “Fuck!” he yelped as he came untouched and wet the crotch of his pants, whimpering when Louis took his teeth out and rolled him over onto his back._

_“Are you going to listen to me now?” Louis demanded, raising an eyebrow in doubt when Harry weakly nodded—he wasn’t sure the Roman had even heard that. “Where are you in the world right now?” he asked, repeatedly running his palm up Harry’s forehead into his messy hair to lull him into calm._

_“I’m so sorry, Louis,” Harry sniffed, tears welling in his eyes as he pieced everything back together after his King’s endorphins wore down. “I abandoned you—”_

_So much for calm. “I'm getting real tired of this pussy bullshit, Harry Styles. So you're a weak little slug against your maker, and I snogged Auron a shit ton of times, so what? Get the fuck over it, you bottom-feeding Trajan-slave!” Louis snapped mercilessly, finally breaking through that weak interior of Harry’s and touching on the Roman Emperor he needed in this situation._

_“Pardon? Any other time and I would beat the living fuck out of you for what you just said,” Harry snarled with bared fangs, knocking Louis off his hips and sitting up to focus because he knew it was crucial. Any other time, Louis would receive that beating, but it wasn't this time. “What did you ask? Where am I?” he repeated to get the question right, furrowing his eyebrows when Louis nodded. “I was in Romania...now I think I'm in...I'm in...where the fuck am I…” he muttered, looking off to the side as he rapidly went through all their moves to find the most recent. “Azazel hasn’t stopped moving—not since Auron’s meltdown from a dream he had,” he realized, angry that he’d forgotten that as well._

_“That was me,” Louis said, glad to hear that he’d broken through a layer of the lure by visiting that fucker in the dream forest. “Shit, Azazel’s onto me,” he noted with a frustrated huff, now wishing he hadn’t broken through so Azazel would remain ignorantly content with his victory._

_“We’re in Jerusalem,” Harry said surely, every detail of their location coming back to him at once. “Underneath the Tomb of the Kings,” he specified, cocking his head to the side when Louis yipped in glee._

_“Jerusalem! Harry, I’m going to the Giza pyramids,” Louis gushed, seeing this as an opportunity to make some sort of attack on Azazel; he knew Cináed and Max both considered all of their siblings necessary for this, but four has to be enough, right? Right? They could kidnap Harry with that amount, right? Louis thought so._

_“No, I don’t want you anywhere near me, Louis. I’d be dangerous to you right now,” Harry pleaded, unable to conceptualize the guilt he’d end up with if he hurt Louixander._

_“Oh please. I could take you. I saw your little video announcement, and I was not impressed. Neither were the Guardians,” he added with an emotionless chuckle, recalling the burn of that cigarette he’d therapeutically smoked after seeing the broadcasted Aelius villains at work._

_“Oh Gods...the entire world hates me, doesn’t it? All our friends…” Harry groaned, trying to hide away behind his hands before Louis stopped him yet again._

_“No, Harry. They understand. I mean, they get why this is happening. No one blames you. We blame Azazel,” Louis promised, adding a smirk to his face to peak Harry’s interest. “We have four of Azazel’s siblings with us. I have Cináed with me; my maker,” he said proudly, nodding when Harry gaped at him in shock._

_“You’re with your maker?” Harry laughed, glad at least that Louis was safe and had strong immortals on his side that would look out for him. “Wait...Azazel has MULTIPLE BROTHERS?”_

_“Nine siblings, but nevermind that. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes to save you, Harry. No one is giving up on you, and even if everyone in the world does, you know I’ll never give up. I will get you back, Harry. Azazel can’t have you—you’re mine,” he snarled, diving forward and sealing his lips over Harry’s with a force that knocked him down onto his back again._

_Harry moaned into the kiss and sought to deepen it, tongues sliding over the other’s as they began to palm at their groins. Just when things started to really heat up, a trickle of ripples waved through their surroundings, and Louis knew exactly what that meant. “Shit!” he hissed, looking around and anxiously waiting for it to happen again. It did. “No!”_

_“What’s happening?” Harry asked fearfully, sitting himself upright and taking Louis right with him. He wasn’t blind to the bends in the air, but he wasn’t sure what it signified._

_“The dream is ending. That means Agnes can’t hold out any longer, or something’s happening on your side,” Louis groaned, tightening his arms around Harry’s neck and pretending he could stop reality if he used strength of will._

_“I don’t wanna leave,” Harry cried petulantly, sharing Louis’ frustrations with being separated again and therefore, on Harry’s part, losing all memory of this precious encounter. “I just got you back, I don’t wan—”_

_“It’s not up to us. Listen, I’ll come back. I swear. Maybe next time you go to sleep. We’ll figure it out, alright? Go to bed early every morning,” Louis said quickly, looking out into the hallway and finding nothing but black. “Shit—Harry, I love you—”_

_“I FUCKING LOVE YOU!” Hadrian roared, startling Louis like a deer and laughing in slight embarrassment. “Sorry, I’ve just been fucking that up lately,” he said with a caress to Louis’ beautiful face, documenting it now before he lost it and became an empty shell as usual._

_“I fucking love you too. And next dream? I want you inside me,” Louis said with a seductive roll of his hips, the lovers giggling lowly to themselves like high-schoolers. Which...Louis isn’t technically graduated, so…_

_“Giving me something to exist for,” Harry murmured in full support of that arousing idea, glancing around at the room and pursing his lips in disdain. The darkness was enclosing them, getting closer every second, and he couldn’t fucking stop it. “Kiss me until it’s all gone?” he whispered to Louis, the lovers sharing that special smile that they only gave each other._

_“I’d kiss you until the universe was gone,” Louis whispered back, the lovers’ lips meeting gently, almost cautiously, slowly tasting the other while their hands traversed the lines of their bodies. It was the sweetest moment in Louis’ life up to that point, and for a dream, nothing had ever felt more real. And then?_

 

***

 

Tunnel.

Louis got up slowly this time, trying to come to terms with the fact that his long-awaited reunion with Harry was over. It hurt like a stab wound to know that Harry wouldn't remember it, but he could only hope the next dream would pick up directly where their first had left off.

When he turned his reluctant attention to ‘real’ life, the first thing he saw was Jenner holding Agnes close to him as she was slumped over incoherently, assumedly recovering from the energy she'd exerted to keep the dreamscape intact. He felt entirely responsible for her troubled state, but feeling responsible didn't necessarily mean feeling bad.

He'd seen Harry. Something he would never apologize for.

The first thing he _heard_ was more peculiar. Weird, creepy snarls and hacks coming from his right. He blinked a few times and turned his gaze in the noises’ direction, noticing first that Harlock and Liam were stood side by side in protective stances to ward off some threat, and noticing secondly what that threat was.

“Ah,” he croaked, wide eyes staring into the multiple faces of black-eyed, lanky, mindless monsters on the other side of the blood line. “So that's a dweller.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three teary cheers for Greensleeves. I finished 18, and have put a fair dent into 19, and I'm feeling great about everything, so whoop whoop. Funk over. See ya next time.


	15. Escape to the Holy City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R.i.p. Robin Twist. The tragedy never fucking ends. Thoughts are with that whole family.  
> Louis' article was also depressing. You're not the bottom of the bag weed, Louis. You're top shelf greens. We love you. 
> 
> In other news, I have a chapter. You'll find it below (?)
> 
> In other, other news, I'm scarily close to finishing Love Endless now. I'm on chapter 20, and it's looking like this will be 23-24. YIKES. I mean, it's only the end of the trilogy, still got the prequel to do, but this is almost finished. I'm going to take my time and let you catch up to me before the final showdown so we can do it together. 
> 
> Look at me, I was so paranoid about that, and now I want it. LOL. Such is life.

Hadrian didn't wake up with a gasp, or a jolt, or a fright; his eyes simply snapped open like inverted bear traps, pupils immediately staring at the flickering ceiling shadowed by candles in his ‘room.’ He was angry, but he didn't know why, and before his mind could get anywhere near his forgotten dream, a fragment of its dialogue filtered through his conscience, the sound so clear it could have been coming from inside the underground chamber.

_“I can't forget you again. I won't. I just got you back…”_

Who? Who had he just gotten back? He'd been feeling a lot lately like he was forgetting things left and right; like there were more missing pieces to his puzzle than there were pieces to begin with; and he was desperate to know why.

As he blinked, the image of two multi-coloured eyes flashed across his closed-eye sight, and he sat erect on the stone floor cushioned by hordes of blankets, gripping his hair as he scrambled for the name _—_ the name that went with the owner of the eyes.

Auron’s hand subconsciously slid over to curl around his upper thigh, his twin evidently sensing his distress in his sleep, but Hadrian wasn't in the mood, smacking the hand away and focusing on the name...name to what? A person? A place? _Place, what place? What was I just thinking about?_

The rough action he'd committed earlier had unfortunately woken Auron, and now his twin was moaning and groaning himself into coherence while he sussed out his surroundings.

“Hayway,” Auron croaked, heaving himself up and studying the emotional state of his brother. “Hayway, are you _crying_?” he gasped, flinging himself semi in front of Hadrian so he could better see him. “Why are you crying, little mirror?”

Hadrian truthfully hadn't known he'd been crying, but when he wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand, saltwater went with it. “Jupiter, I didn't realize...I'm just frustrated,” he said, staying still while Auron stroked all his tears away with a warm look of compassion.

“Yeah? Why are you frustrated?” Auron pried so he might be of help, leaning his weight into his hand on the blankets behind him while he rubbed up and down Hadrian’s arm with the other.

“I don't _know_ why I'm frustrated,” Hadrian huffed, aware he sounded a bit uncooperative but Auron could easily sense his honesty.

“Huh…” the eldest twin hummed, moving his soothing hand to his own chin to scratch it in thought. “I can see how that would be frustrating…”

“Auron,” Hadrian grumbled disapprovingly, not considering this a time and place to be witty and humourous when he felt like his life was caving in on itself.

“I'm sorry, lovebug. I've been feeling out of sorts lately too, so I get it,” Auron sighed, tucking a strand of Hadrian’s curly hair behind his ear and placing a kiss to his shoulder bone. “How about I sing you back to sleep?” he offered, grinning when Hadrian’s face whipped around to stare him down from centimetres away.

“You'd _do_ that?” Hadrian asked, dumbfounded by the notion.

“I wouldn't?” Auron challenged pointedly, slightly disappointed that Hadrian saw it as such an odd thing for Auron to do.

“It's just...you haven't done that since we were kids,” Hadrian reasoned, following Auron with his eyes as he swung himself around and backed up against the rock wall at the top of their bedding.

“No time like the present, ey?” Auron philosophized, making himself decently comfortable sitting against coarse stone and then patting his thigh in invitation. “Now come here,” he said, reaching out and snagging his brother to pull him down and force him to relax. “Head on my lap...there we go. Good?” he asked after Hadrian had situated himself, getting a small nod in encouragement.

“Wait, wait,” Hadrian corrected, grabbing a blanket from the edge of the pile and throwing it over his body for comfort. He shifted his legs until he was directly perpendicular to Auron’s body, sideways of how he'd previously slept, and laid his head back down in Auron’s lap, turning onto his left side to face his doting brother. “Okay, now I'm good,” he announced, closing his eyes after catching Auron’s amused smile.

“Alright, just relax,” Auron bade, lightly petting at Hadrian’s hair while he cleared his throat in preparation, beginning the first verse of the familiar Roman tune their Mother had sung to them in situations like these:

_“Io vivat, lo vivat,_

_Nostrorum sanitas,_

_Hoc est amoris poculum,_

_Doloris est antidotum…”_

Hadrian had to crack a smile at the chosen selection Auron had begun. A bittersweet song of living life to the fullest because death is too long and our lives are too short. It was particularly ironic to be singing it as a vampire to another vampire, but it took on another meaning with that in mind: death _was_ too long. Live your borrowed blood to its fullest. In any case, Auron’s deep and slow voice was like a sedative upon Hadrian’s busy mind, and his troubles began to melt away with the honey of his brother’s beautiful tones.

_“Io vivat, lo vivat,_

_Nostrorum sanitas,_

_Dum nihil est in poculo,_

_Iam repleatur denuo…”_

Hadrian knew he was beginning to slip back into the realm of dreams, and he gave Auron’s hip a grateful squeeze before he ventured out of reality. He’d never felt more at peace, but one tiny thought graced him on his way out and he had to wonder what it meant. _Didn't someone else just sing to you?_

_“Nos iungit amicitia,_

_Et vinum praebet gaudia,_

_Est vita nostra brevior,_

_Et mors amara longior,_

_Io vivat, lo vivat, lo vivat…”_

Auron knew Hadrian had fallen into the deep sleep he'd sought to evoke, so he faded his singing out as though someone was turning a volume dial on his voice box, ultimately drowning the room in a silence so thick a breath would echo.

He stilled his petting hand and beamed down at his twin, knocking his back against the wall as he realized sleep would now be beyond tedious for him in this position. _You're lucky I love you,_ he thought to his obliviously serene brother, closing his eyes and chasing that faraway concept of wholesome rest with an axe held over his head. _Lucky you're the youngest…_

 

~~~

 

“What exactly _are_ these things?” Louis asked in disgust, having walked up between Liam and Harlock to gaze up, down, and around at the nightmarish creatures.

“Vampires who got trapped in the tunnels and lost their minds,” Harlock said with tangible distaste, his most common hatred of late being these animalistic bastards.

“Uh-huh, and uh...why didn’t anyone _tell me_ these things existed?” Louis demanded, considering himself an important figure to disclose tunnel-dwelling monsters to in full detail.

“It’s not that we purposefully kept it from you,” Harlock grunted, kicking a Lost back when its arm made to reach over the line. “Believe me, I was mostly just trying to forget about them.”

“Still woulda been nice to get a warning,” Louis grumbled, kicking one in the face just to make it squeal. “They're kinda cute...in like a gross type of way,” he mused, oblivious to Liam and Harlock’s looks of disbelief.

“Are you _blind_?” Harlock cried, glancing between Louis and the monsters that made him gag. “Max said that same shit once. I wanna know what the fuck you two psychopaths are looking at…”

“Don't test me, Harlock. I just spent time with Harry in a dream, and I have a lot of pent-up rage boiling my blood right now,” he said, stepping up to the vampire and getting in his space. “And if I don't take it out on something soon, my target is gonna be your face,” he threatened, backing off when Harlock gulped in trepidation.

“ _Shit_ , that's right! You saw Harry?” Harlock breathed in fascination, rushing back to that point once he fully internalized it.

“Yyyyup,” Louis quipped, crossing his arms as he stared at the dwellers and planned out how he would exterminate them all.

“How is he?” Harlock asked carefully, Liam, and everyone behind them also leaning in to hear the report.

“How would you be?” Louis scoffed, giving Harlock a sidelong deadpan. “You wanna get a thesaurus and look up all the synonyms for ‘upset’? ‘Cuz he's all of those.”

“But you _saw_ him. What did you talk about?” Harlock pressed, hanging on Louis’ every word because this had been his goal ever since they'd found him knelt in the tunnels after Hadrian had been taken.

“After I calmed him down? Where he is,” Louis said with a smirk, waggling his eyebrows when Harlock’s jaw dropped.

“He _told_ you?”

“Of course he told me,” Louis said, looking at Harlock like he was nuts.

“Well...where is it?”

“Under some ancient catacombs in Jerusalem, where else would he be?” Louis laughed, causing a snort to rip out of Harlock as well.

“That's morbid,” Harlock muttered with a fond shake of his head, his old friend's location somehow making all the sense in the world.

“Meh. An Emperor belongs in the company of Kings, dead or alive,” Louis defended, humming at his statement and looking at his own dead and Kingly hand as he flipped it back to front. “...Literally.”

“Hang on...we're going to the pyramids,” Harlock commented, widening his eyes at Louis’ nod. “Those are _not_ far from Jerusalem…”

“No, they're not,” Louis agreed, landing another kick to an adventurous dweller.

“Are we gonna do anything about that?” Harlock asked, familiar enough with Louis by now to know that thought had already crossed his mind, whether he had subsided it or not.

“That's a suicide mission,” Louis reluctantly admitted, having taken that off his list of plans once he realized how stupid it was. “Besides...Azazel is onto me. He knows I've been walking in their dreams, and because of that, they haven't stopped moving. They could be sleeping in a different country every day,” he growled, that knowledge eating him alive the more he mulled over it.

“Shit…” Harlock cursed, running a hand through his wavy locks as his mood plummeted in the face of this fierce disadvantage.

“Yeah, I know...getting closer to them only pushes them further away, but I don't know what else to do. That's the only way I can find them. I can't just _guess_. Pin the tail on the map? No, I need some kind of general idea, or it’s hopeless,” Louis mumbled, his brow in a hard line of troubled consideration.

“The brothers will help,” Agnes said from her unmoved spot against the wall, apparently revived enough to stay fully present. “I have a feeling they will know how to find Azazel.”

“They better,” Louis said over his shoulder, giving her a short sympathetic smile to show his gratitude for her earlier sacrifice. “If they even agree to help,” he added as he turned back around, curling both hands into fists in preemptive anger over their rejections.

“Hey, Cináed said it was profitable to have Aguta and Akna with us before asking the eastern siblings for help,” Harlock said to boost morale, choosing to cross bridges of discord only when they came to them.

“You're speaking like that's already an advantage we have,” Louis chided, gesturing around at their group. “If you haven't noticed, those four originals aren't even _here_. We have no idea if they'll accept the plea,” he reasoned, his doubt of their success climbing over his hope and overshadowing it like a solar eclipse.

“Well, I know a good way to pass the time,” Harlock said softly, resting his hand on Louis’ shoulder to ease his physical tension.

“What's that?” Louis muttered skeptically, glaring daggers into the critters that unassailably gathered at the line of blood laid to keep them at bay.

“You're looking at it,” Harlock chuckled, understanding crossing Louis’ face as he batted Harlock’s hand off and crouched down to spring forward into the fray.

“You're right,” Louis agreed, dropping his fangs and hissing at the pests, noting their momentary look of fear and grinning in anticipation. “Come here, you little demons.”

 

\---

 

Thirty minutes at least of pure brutality later, Louis was just about to call it quits because he'd long since been satisfied with the slaughter he'd exacted upon the dwellers, but they scattered in an unprecedented retreat before he could officially throw the towel in. “Hah!” he cried after them, a smug pride straightening out his shoulders. “I see you cower before your superior.”

“Yeah, and it's not you,” Harlock said with a yawn, one of the only vampires left awake because the sun had risen quite some time ago and their group had inevitably succumbed to their exhaustion.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Louis huffed, stepping back over the line of blood that had separated his fodder enemies from the group.

“I've seen them run like that before,” Harlock said with a shrug as he gazed with narrowed eyes into the darkness of the tunnels. “It only ever means one thing.”

“Which is…” Louis challenged, promptly altering his demeanour when he detected _four_ presences heading toward his location. Cináed and Max, obviously, and two unrecognized but equally foreboding aromas with them. “Ah.”

The two Elders leaned themselves against opposite sides of the hall and stayed silent as their original dominants grew closer, their threatening scents mixing with the vampires’ defense systems like a haywire chemical reaction—it was hard not to run away. Nevertheless, they showed no fear, realizing their automatic impulses to flee weren't terribly needed in this situation.

Almost as soon as their ears perceived the originals’ approach, the four scary siblings were right in front of them.

“Shit!” Louis gasped, amazed at how fast these fuckers could move if left to their own devices. Max had evidently slowed himself down significantly to run them to the Santa Maria.

“Boo,” Cináed chuckled, looking over Alexander’s shoulder to inspect his sleeping lover. “She put a sound barrier up?” he guessed, knowing that if she hadn't done something of the sort, Alexander’s loud curse would have woken up most of the group.

“Yeah, she did,” Louis confirmed, at a loss for words on how to address or even mention the blatantly Inuit male and Mayan female behind his maker and Max.

“Alexander, this is Akna,” Cináed said as he stepped aside to present her, speaking something in an unfamiliar tongue to her before she stepped forward.

Louis was stunned at her beauty; he'd never seen a woman quite like her in his entire existence. She exuded power and strength like it was the perfume of her very pores; face devoid of flaws, body without a weakness. Her hair was similar to Max’s long black locks, and it, along with a dense collection of necklaces made from bone, were the only two things to cover her breasts.

She wore a beige skirt tied across her waist with twine, but it did not overlap, so the entire right side of her body was on full display, and Louis noticed deep and jagged scars coating the exposed skin. He wondered what had happened there, but he had to move on. Her wrists and ankles were loaded with jewelry, which were pieces of rib bone strung together with more twine, and her fingernails and toenails were just as sharp as her siblings’. _So a sibling had to have hurt her...nothing else could._

Her arms, legs, neck, and face were methodically painted red with what Louis _only knew_ was annatto paste from his anthropology class, and the striking pigment wrapped around her forehead and cheeks like a battle helmet. One of the most magnificent creatures Louis had ever seen. “Hi?” he said questioningly, no past encounters guiding the way as to how he should act.

“She doesn't speak English. She hates my humans, and what they did to hers. Can't blame her,” Cináed said, murmuring something else to Akna that turned into a short back and forth of sentences. “She thinks you smell disgusting.”

“Oh, that's nice,” Louis said flippantly, screeching like a banshee when she dashed forward and sank her fangs into his shoulder. _“Then why the fuck—_?” he begged as he subconsciously rut his hips against her, those paramount original endorphins making their way into his bloodstream and liquefying his bones.

She then released him and he leadenly collapsed to the ground, twitching from the pleasure as he focused his blurry eyes to see Akna spit his blood back out and make an awful retching sound.  

“ _Zakwehla vos arlo,”_ she seethed with a grimace, turning around and biting into Max to mask the flavour. Max pushed a grunt from his throat and the two tumbled against the wall as he lost his footing, holding his sister’s head to his neck and closing his eyes.

“What the fuck just happened?” Louis croaked from his immobilized state on the floor, glancing over at the dumbfounded Harlock and then back to Cináed.

“She wanted to taste you,” Cináed said obviously, holding a hand out to help him stand.

“Apparently I'm gross,” Louis chuckled, clasping his hand with Cináed’s and stumbling into his chest as his maker threw a sturdy arm around his upper back.

“You taste like Azazel and myself. I don't even know why she tried,” Cináed snorted, whistling as he turned Louis around to face Aguta.

Aguta had the same skin tone as Max and their sister, but had a much friendlier face; calm brown eyes, a long and fitting crow’s nose, soft lips, and a spattering of birthmarks...though...Louis didn't know how accurately he could call them _birth_ marks.

His hair, whatever length it might be, was fully covered by a beanie of sorts, though it was immensely complex to explain, with large tufts of tassels trailing down the sides, and two more hanging from the earflaps. The beanie itself had almost every dark-versioned colour of the rainbow, and it looked like the warmest thing Louis had ever seen.

Draped upon his shoulders was a massive deep red poncho, if that's the correct term, with abstract and maze-like patterns in palettes of white, blue, yellow, and a bit of black. The most amusing part of this whole ensemble had to be the clay-brown corduroy jeans with torn and frayed hems (that dragged noisily when he walked) on his legs. What a contrast.

“I speak English,” Aguta said firsthand in a rare to hear Inuktitut accent, holding his hand out for Louis to take.

Louis, to be perfectly honest, was pretty done with original vampires, but he took the hand regardless, not even blinking an eye when Aguta hauled him into his chest and wrapped him in an overly familiar embrace.

“I don't mind the stench of Azazel. I find your natural scent divine,” he said, his accent not taking away from his obvious fluency in English.

“Thank you,” Louis blurted, thinking of no other response to befit that compliment.

“I am Aguta of the North—tell me your name,” he bade, backing the child against the wall and pressing him into it so he felt how trapped he was.

“...Alexander,” Louis said when he had the focus to do so, staring into Aguta’s deep brown eyes and feeling a bit too happy with his ensnarement. _These originals._  

“The Great, right?” Aguta asked, sniffing at the child’s neck and running his hands down his forearms to entwine their fingers.

“Yes,” Louis confirmed warily, wondering if every single member of this family were just as obnoxiously affectionate and/or invasive of personal boundaries as the ones he'd met.

“Alexander the Great _King_ was Alexander the human...weren't you,” Aguta stated, the sentence ending too tonelessly to be a question.

“All of my conquering was done as a human,” Louis confirmed, pleading with Cináed over Aguta’s shoulder to save him, but his maker seemed especially amused at his brother’s behavior. _Bastard._

“You're very impressive. I can see why my brother set his sights on you. Had I found you with pure blood, I would have taken it too,” Aguta mused, moving their joined hands up to either side of Alexander’s head and pinning them against the wall.

“Do you not want it now?” Louis asked, starting to lose his shame over these flirtations because it was clear he wouldn't be able to stop these originals’ advances whether he did or didn't flirt...so he might as well.

“Do you want me to want it now?” Aguta purred, stepping in as close as space would allow and pressing every inch of himself against the frozen Alexander.

“Make up your mind, Aguta. I'd like to speed this along,” Cináed griped, his eyes set on his peaceful Agnes, dozed off on her side using the sleeping Jenner’s lap as a pillow. He wanted to go to her, but he wanted his family’s introductions with Alexander to be taken care of first.

“Very well. For your benefit, little Alexander, I'll want it now,” Aguta chuckled, licking up Alexander’s neck and biting him just below the jaw.

Louis jolted from the sensation and didn't even try to stop his pleasured sigh, his lips parted in bliss as another set of original endorphins wreaked havoc through his susceptible body. Aguta’s were stronger than Max and Akna’s, proving him to be older than the two, and Louis seriously wondered how the Aelius twins handled the saliva of the eldest, Azazel. Louis would probably explode.

In light of Louis being without blood, no guilty orgasm could crash through his groin, so that made him feel a bit better about letting it happen, but he couldn't stop the whine when Aguta pulled away. “That was delightful,” he slurred, giving Aguta his most grateful smile when their eyes met.

“You weren't that bad,” Aguta quipped, ruffling the King’s hair and finally facing his impatient siblings. “What?” he huffed at their deadpan expressions. “ _Alafreytha.”_

“Whatever, let's wake them up,” Cináed grumbled, happily leaving their cluster to step over sprawled limbs en route to his lover. He knelt beside her and placed a hand on her belly, aware he'd roused her from the subtle flinch in her shoulders.

“A hand over my baby means it's the father, or it’s someone who is about to lose that hand,” she warned groggily with unopened eyes, a strong instinct verifying it was indeed the first example.

Cináed gave a short chuckle through his nose and bent down to kiss her cheek, taking her hand when she curled it into his hair. “Good girl,” he whispered just behind her jaw, moving back to beam down at her with pride.

“I just dropped the sound barrier,” she informed, that statement alone stirring Jenner beside her.

“Everyone up!” Louis snapped, watching the hilarious process of everyone flinching awake, calming down, then noticing the two extra originals and flinching again.

“They’re here!” Martin announced needlessly, the words blurting from his lips before he’d even thought to keep silent.

“Aguta,” Louis said with a point behind him and to the right, rolling his eyes when the Inuit original snaked his arms around his hips and inhaled his neck. Martin gaped at Louis in confusion and pieced together the multiple fresh bite marks their King sported, but just as he was pointing a finger at him in accusation, Louis pointedly moved the introductions along. “And Akna,” he added, jabbing his head to the left.

Martin followed the directive and gulped at Akna’s menacing self, her eyes devoid of tolerance to be where she was, surrounded by a bunch of children, which she clearly saw as nothing more than ants. “We’re humbled to be in your presence,” he said to her to make himself likeable, kneeling as he crossed an arm over his chest.

Akna watched the gesture and asked Cináed to translate what he’d said, giving the child a lopsided smile and stepping up to him to lift him to his feet by his chin. She told Cináed to tell him that he smelled even worse than Alexander, but that she admired his submission, and when Cináed did so, the child nervously fidgeted and bowed his head once more.

“Let’s get out of these tunnels,” Cináed suggested, raising his eyebrows when his words caused a collective sigh of relief. “Careful, I made these,” he grumbled, Max stepping up behind him and squinting his eyes at the children.

“They hate our tunnels,” he spat, only breaking his frown when Stacey and Jet rushed to convince him his tunnels were wonderful. They were lying, but it was so cute to watch them try and sell it.

“So you’ll help?” Louis asked to Aguta, who was still uncomfortably close to him and inappropriately touching him when he let his guard down.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Aguta reasoned, giving a pat and harsh grope to Alexander’s arse and making him yelp before backing away.

“You have a point,” Louis muttered, rubbing his stinging arse cheek in annoyance.

“I need a map, but where are we even going? Egypt?” Agnes asked, checking to see if that was still the plan.  

“Yes, love. Giza pyramids. We don’t know which one, so that general area will do,” Cináed confirmed, looking around the piles of bags for the map that had gotten them here, knowing it was with all the other detailed country maps they had.

“Wait, we can’t just pop into a desert, the sun is still up,” Louis said incredulously, mostly just disappointed in himself for not realizing that sooner.

“What?” Zayn asked, in obvious shock over that information. “But we all slept…”

“Not for long; Harlock and I have been awake this whole time. It hasn’t been a full day at all,” he explained, backed by Harlock’s agreeing hum.

“Never in my existence have I been awake during daylight so consistently than these last few weeks. This shouldn’t even be possible,” the Pakistani griped, seeing it as a crime that he’d gotten so many hours of precious sleep stolen from him because of the endless onslaught of emergencies they’d had to deal with.

“I know, I’m not used to it either,” Louis agreed, carefully sidestepping Aguta when he made to scoot in closer and put his grubby hands on him again. _As if Auron wasn’t enough—someone is always thirsty for me._ “I think it’s just our instincts. We know shit needs to be done. Vampires are usually lazy; we can’t be anymore,” he supposed, not offending any turned immortal here because they all knew it was true. All they wanted in life was to have a blood supply up to their ceiling that never ran out, to sleep all the time, and kill some things every once in awhile. Anything that didn't exhaust their rather selective energy, so, _definitely_ not save the whole world.

“We’re not even tired,” Tanner mentioned, his wide and alert eyes speaking for themselves—he wouldn’t be going back to sleep any time soon.

“Then go to sleep,” Cináed said uncaringly, grabbing the baby vampire by the collar and trapping him in a lure. “Sleep,” he commanded, going around the whole group after that one fell unconscious and repeating his action. Eventually, there was no one left to knock out except the eldest children (and Agnes, of course), and after taking care of Liam and Harlock, he met Alexander’s eyes with a mischievous glint.

“Oh no. What’s that look? That’s something extra, what are you—”

“Your turn, Aléxandros,” Cináed lilted, stalking forward and knocking Aguta out of the way to have his child to himself.

“Yeah, and?” Louis challenged, wondering why such nerve-racking focus was being put onto him.

“And you’re my strongest. You need more convincing than that,” Cináed informed, licking his fangs as he grabbed the back of Alexander’s neck.

“What! Oh no—” Louis whimpered, shrieking when the second most powerful endorphins of all time shot into his body like little rockets. _These fucking originals!_ he screamed in his head, pledging to somehow get them back for all of their presumptuous behavior. All vengeful thoughts aside, Cináed was just how he remembered, and he was actually really angry that he wasn’t alive this time—not coming almost hurt. _Why me?_

Cináed pulled back out and laughed at Alexander’s dazed expression, dipping him down toward the floor as he shouted, “Go to sleep!” and watched him droop backward in compliant slumber. “Good boy,” he said with a smile, dropping him unceremoniously and returning to his wonderful lover.

“Don’t even think about it, I’ll be asleep in five minutes,” Agnes snorted, helping Cináed wipe off some of Louis’ blood from his lips with the corner of her apron after he settled in next to her.

“I know you will,” Cináed laughed because her pregnancy indeed caused her to sleep like a vampire, motioning for his siblings to take a seat because they wouldn’t be moving for a bit until the sun hid itself again. “Not that I don’t kind of like that Jenner kid, because I do, but he’s not worthy to be your pillow,” he said without mercy, delicately lifting and positioning his Aggie until she was lying sideways into his chest between his legs. “I, however, am.”

“You would get defensive about a face I slapped if it wasn’t yours,” Agnes chuckled, blowing a sigh through her lips as her baby started a dance-party in her womb. Annoying as it was, it wouldn't actually hinder her sleep—she could sleep through a lot of stomach drama by now.

“Hey, I love it when you hit me,” Cináed said, one hand finding its way to its recently favourite place on Agnes as the other tangled in her hair and stroked the nape of her neck.

“That’s good, you always deserve it,” Agnes slurred, drifting off the longer she spent wrapped up in her lover’s sedative embrace.

“You do always deserve it, Cináed,” Aguta snorted, cradling the unconscious Alexander in his arms and looking forward to him waking up and panicking over it.

“Only from her, you swine,” Cináed quietly snarled, checking his now sleeping woman to ensure he hadn’t messed up that progress, then kissing her strawberry-blonde hair. “Only from her.”

 

\---

 

“We ready?” Louis asked the group, arm around Niall while the blonde yawned tiredly into his neck.

“I think so,” Erakus shrugged, his ringed hand (devoid of all previous rings) linked with his husband’s.

“Alright, Aggie. Do your thing,” Louis said with an encouraging swish of his wrist, glaring at Aguta when he crept into his line of sight. See, Louis had been rudely awakened by more fangs in his neck, and having come from too deep a sleep to know any better, he'd immediately assumed it was Harry.

Didn't take him long to realize Harry was not in fact with him, and what an infuriating discovery it was to find he was in _Aguta’s_ lap. Aguta and Auron should really meet up for a nice glass of blood beside a crackling fireplace and talk about how merry it was to be assaulters.

After tumbling away like he was in a pit of spiders, Louis had chewed Aguta out regarding the concept of consent, gone around and woken his friends, and now it was time to make the jump into Egypt. He almost hoped Harry wasn't still in Jerusalem, because regardless of what he'd said to Harlock about it being a suicide mission, he knew once there, the temptation to leave would sear him like a brand.

Despite his objective comprehension that it was indeed a suicide mission, Louis was in grave peril of doing it anyway. It was just a matter of what he would find once there. Nothing but Israelis, or Azazel and the twins. He knew he had to go alone; he didn't want Azazel smelling his brothers and sister…

 _What am I thinking? Am I really considering ditching my group like a teenage runaway?_ he asked himself, worried about how serious and literal this planning was becoming. _It's a terrible idea, Louixander. Just terrible. Don't do it. Fuck, I'm gonna do it, aren't I? Shit!_

“Louis, she needs your face,” Tanner said with a snap of his fingers, the King looking around in shock to see everyone expectantly staring at him.

“Right, sorry,” he mumbled, leaning himself down so Agnes could get her hand on his cheek. And then?

Desert.

“Fuck, I _hate_ that!” Louis groaned, still just as thrown off by the transition as the first time. At least he was standing this time around, but even his dead stomach was vehemently against this shit.

“Louis,” Niall said in awe, faced the opposite way from him while he haphazardly hit him in the shoulder.

“ _What_?” Louis snapped, leaning away from Niall’s abrasive attention-grabbing methods and shooting him a put-upon glare.

Niall said nothing and sluggishly pointed in front of him, his wide eyes sparkling and shimmering with fascination.

Louis huffed in exasperation and spun around, staring up and to the left at the gripping presence of the three diagonal pyramids of Giza, Aggie having zapped them to the Great and largest pyramid, ‘Khufu.’ A common misconception was that the middle one, ‘Khafre,’ was the largest, because it certainly appeared so from far away or in photographs, but that was only because it was on higher ground. Khufu is the beast of the trinity, and just to educate you, the smallest was called ‘Menkaure.’

“Yeah, it's the pyramids. What's so special about them?” Louis sniffed, setting his hands on his hips in his most iconic pretentious manner.

“But...they're the Egyptian pyramids,” Niall breathed, grinning like a blesséd fool to be in their vicinity. “They're _beautiful_.”

“Hardly,” Louis muttered, cocking his head to the side as he studied their flaws. If 1973 was the end of the line, Alexander had first seen the pyramids near the halfway mark of their existence since being built two thousand years prior, and they'd only deteriorated more since then. “They're looking the saddest they ever have these days. One too many sandstorms, I reckon. Did you know I used to be _Pharaoh_ of Egypt?” he boasted, sticking his nose in the air and allowing himself a moment of relief that Hadrian wasn't here to spout his discrediting groan of, “Oh, _here_ we go.”

 _“Here_ we fucking go,” Harlock grunted, rubbing at his eye while he blew a huff through his lips like a horse.

“I _beg_ your pardon—”

“Quiet,” Cináed snapped, smacking his child upside the head for being such an intolerable, vanity-driven nuisance. “Utul is in Khufu,” he said without room for doubt, his siblings tensed as they stared on at the largest pyramid before them.

“Of course he is,” Louis chuckled with a sigh, his nose twitching in alarm when he picked up on a many number of vampiric scents in the area.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” a voice growled in Arabic that only a select few of Louis’ group understood, making all the borrowed-immortality vampires turn around to defend themselves if need be.

The voice belonged to a dark-skinned male with a group of seven flanking his sides, all angry and confrontational as they snarled at Louis’ group, stopping short when he really paid attention to their ancient company. Wasn’t his fault he hadn’t noticed sooner—he was barely a teenager and didn’t know any better—but that ignorance was about to cost him.

“Children of Azazel,” Cináed snarled in English, cracking his knuckles and finally pivoting to face them. “Who wants to be the first to die?” he challenged, displaying his fangs and hissing endorphins in their general direction.

“Bastion will hear about this!” the leader spat defeatedly in heavily-accented English, ushering his group away before they were all torn apart.

“Good!” Louis shouted, stalking forward as they stumbled further backward. “Tell him! You fucking tell him Aléxandros ho Mégas is looking for him!” he yelled, gearing up to add more threatening requests when the harsh hand of Cináed slammed down on his shoulder.

“Don't make me hit you,” he warned under his breath, digging his claws into Alexander’s skin for effect.

Louis sucked in a breath of pain and glanced up at his maker, fighting the urge to give him attitude because he knew that was an idiot’s plan. By the time he looked back to the area in which the predators had been stood, they’d already left, booking it like frightened rabbits back to the crowded city of Cairo.

“They’re not worth it. Let’s go,” Cináed ordered, taking Alexander by his upper arm and pushing him in front so he could keep an eye on him, taking Aggie under his arm and following after him.

Louis grumbled and referenced his memory of the pyramids, walking around to the northern face of Khufu. Sure enough, up fifteen rows of blocks that were essentially as tall as Louis, smack dab in the middle of Khufu’s slanted side (made up wholly of two hundred and ten levels) was the ominous entrance into its ancient chambers. “There you are,” he mumbled, scratching his scalp and dreading whatever tourist culture had done to the architectural beasts. If Khufu had a gift shop now, he would blow the whole thing up with dynamite.

“Do we hop the blocks?” Niall asked, trying not to notice how jittery Zayn was beside him. Meeting his ancestor (thereby Niall’s) was evidently not something he wanted to do.

“Do you see another way up than hopping the blocks?” Louis reasoned, skipping forward and leaping up to the first level, making a stereotypical side profile Egyptian pose with his arm bent palm-up in front of his face like he was holding a tray, the other face-down behind him.

“Cleopatra would kill you,” Niall snickered, following Louis’ lead and jumping up after him as everyone else additionally prepared to climb the giant stairs of the pyramid.

“She would _try_ ,” Louis emphasized with a smirk, grabbing Niall’s hand and declaring him his leaping buddy. “And it's Petra now, Niall.”

“Oh yeah,” Niall hummed, coming to the sixteenth or so level and squinting into the darkness to make out what lay through the entrance. The opening was obviously grand once upon a time, with two wide upside down V’s that framed the top of the entryway, but it had long since lost its luster. Niall couldn't even imagine a time when these structures were a work in progress—and he found satisfaction in the fact that Louixander, with all his worldly knowledge, couldn't either. These pyramids had been around for a lot, _lot_ longer than him. _Finally._

“Cináed, you go, I’m not gonna be the one to come across him first,” Louis said, stepping aside as he pushed Niall back so his maker could pass through them.

“He already knows we’re here,” Cináed mentioned, agreeing to lead the way and disappearing into the pitch-black pyramid as thought it was his own home.

“Mom, flashlight,” Louis called to Stacey, who flung her bag around to her front and pulled out a large silver flashlight, tossing it up to Louis from her spot several rows down.

Louis caught it in a sure fist and flicked its blinding ray on, keeping it pointed down as he made a last sweep of the Western Sahara desert with his eyes, making sure they weren't being obviously watched or followed before strolling inside with a sigh.

He was met with a man-made walkway set with wooden boards like a train track that ran along the narrow column of the first passage, complete with metal handrails for the especially uncoordinated, and he bit back a scoff, knowing that sound would echo like there was six of him in the corridor.

“ _Ishtar_!” Cináed bellowed, causing all the immortals inside the pyramid to slap their hands over their ears in defense.

 _And I was worried about scoffing?_ Louis thought, removing his hands as he listened for a response.

“ _Yes_?” the assumed Utul-Ishtar called back in agitation, sounding as though he was extremely inconvenienced.

From his brother’s reply, Cináed could now pinpoint exactly where he was, and that was quite a ways below the surface of the desert, hidden within the depths of the underground maze, completely inaccessible to the public. “This way,” he said quietly, guiding the long line of their forces toward his irritated brother, taking every path that would lead them further down.

Cináed eventually came to a dead-end and pursed his lips in contemplation, stepping up to a corner of the wall and feeling around its obvious archway for the mechanism he knew was somewhere upon it. Louis shone his flashlight on the hieroglyphic-coated stone and watched Cináed poke around at it, his eyebrows shooting up when his maker pressed on and shifted a square just enough to swing the whole wall open.

“Should have figured something like that would happen,” Martin muttered in disdain, hating these pyramids almost as much as he'd despised the tunnels. De Förlorade were one thing, but he couldn't shake the fear that mummies would start crawling around as well. He's seen too much…

They ambled on in silence after ducking under the arch of the secret door, and Louis’ skin started to prickle with an odd tension he couldn’t explain because he was dead, and he crossed his arms in frustration, one wrist still twisted to point the flashlight beam ahead. He felt nervous, but it wasn’t the prospect of Utul—it was the temptation to leave at the first chance he could grab and head straight for Jerusalem. _Am I really going to do this?_

He continued to weigh his options and the potential consequences to each one, and only the sight of sporadic human skeletons jarred him out of his thoughts, his eyes darting around the widening passageway in confusion. “These aren’t...who the fuck were these people?” he asked, obviously knowing they weren’t mummified Egyptians. They were normal skeletons lying on the ground with common street clothes stuck to their gooey conditions.  

“This was Utul’s doing,” Cináed said as though Alexander shouldn’t have had to ask, and maybe he hadn’t, but it had taken him by surprise. “Picked off non-natives from tour groups it would seem,” he continued, not helping Louis’ wariness one bit.

“That’s comforting. We have _humans_ down here with us, you know,” Louis reminded, not even bothering to censor his volume because he knew Utul would hear them no matter what.

“Well aware, you brat. Do you know how many human skeletons I’ve created?” Cináed fired back, unperturbed by his brother’s visible body count when he had a much larger collection of his own. “I put my kills these days in an old, unused well I dug quite a ways further down. They’re starting to reach the top,” he muttered in distaste, Aggie chuckling at his carcass predicament. She had no sympathy.

“You’re probably the only vampire I’ve ever met that has somewhere special for his kills,” Louis commented, thinking back to all the humans he’d left strewn across city streets and town centers.

“They give themselves to me—it’s disrespectful to leave them alone after doing something so selfless,” Cináed said passionately, understanding the value of a human life after being with one for so long—longer than any non-human lover in the world had ever spent with one. It was a human who carried his child, albeit a magical human, but a human nevertheless. They were important.

“Selfless,” Louis repeated skeptically as they began to descend a staircase, seriously doubting the mindless flock of a bloodsource to a vampire with a desperately bared neck could be categorized as a ‘selfless’ act. They didn’t even know what they were doing.

The steps they'd come to moments ago started to get substantially steep, and Liam had to toss Johnny onto his back, barely navigating the dark terrain on his own but still being the most trustworthy of the two. From what he could see, alternative passages began to pop up on the sides the further they went, but they stayed on their straightforward course, dropping down a particularly tall last step when they were scarily greeted.

“You’ve come close enough,” the same voice from earlier suddenly uttered not too far ahead of them, causing Louis to point his flashlight down with a cupped hand over its bulb so he wouldn’t anger the unseen brother.

“Shut that off,” Aguta whispered through the gap of two children that stood between Alexander and himself,straightening back up when the King obediently did so.

“Can we get some light?” Cináed asked to Utul in honour of all the children in his midst, able to see fine himself but knowing the children could not and would greatly desire to.

Utul said nothing and the sounds of feet shuffling across sandy dirt were heard, most vampires waiting in motionless suspense before Utul set flame to three torches on the walls of the dead-end chamber they’d traveled to, and meandered back to his bedding atop a stone-made shelf (one that had probably been used for mummification in the past).

“End of the line and you found me—congratulations. What do you want? And you two, come here,” Utul said with a point that looked to Louis like it was aimed at him, but when he stepped aside and looked behind him, the point’s target was obvious. Zayn and Niall.  

Said chosen vampires tried for a second to fight the beckon, but Zayn was ultimately the one to break the awkward freeze, taking Niall’s hand and passing Louis, Agnes, and Cináed to approach his ancestor.

Utul was of a physical Middle-Eastern appearance, with browned skin, black wavy hair to his shoulders, and light brown (that could probably be green sometimes) eyes. Defined eyebrows shot across his brow bone, and neatly kempt facial hair shorter than Cináed’s framed his lips and reached up his jaw into his hairline. He wore a black long-sleeved dishdasha (or thawb) that reached to his mid-calves and had six buttons down the front, silky, form-fitting bottoms underneath, and had long slender feet that bore sharp nails and no room for shoes. So, he was Arabic, then.

Proven when Utul asked Zayn, _in Arabic_ , what language he spoke. He began to go down the list, naming Farsi (Iranian Persian) and other dialects of ‘Persian’ such as Dari (Afghanistan) and Tajik (spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), before moving on to Turkish, Hebrew, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Azeri, Luri, Armenian, Urdu—”

“ _Roko! Kya ap Urdu bolte hain_?” Zayn interjected, basically telling Utul to quit listing shit because he’d gotten to Zayn’s language, and then asking him if he spoke it as well.

They had an interesting back and forth with each other in Urdu, only a few vampires around them able to follow their conversation, and Zayn eventually steered the talk in the direction of English, assuring Utul that he spoke it fluently and all here but Akna did as well; but apparently originals had their _own_ language, so that wasn’t a problem.

“Come closer,” Utul cooed to the Pakistani and his blonde, caressing the skin of their arms when they approached, inhaling said flesh with his blood beneath it, and then pushing them down to sit at his feet because he wanted to keep his two children close. “Why’ve you come?” he demanded of Cináed, eyeing his two brothers and sister behind him in suspicion.

“Azazel. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed what’s happening, Ishtar. You and I are surface dwellers, we see it all,” Cináed said to get it out of the way, making it clear from the start that excuses would be neither believed nor tolerated.

“I see it. What has it to do with me?” Utul challenged, petting his descendants’ heads as he squared off with the second eldest of his family, unimpressed with their get-together no matter what the cause happened to be.

It was then that Max guided the least important members of the group away and directed them to the hidden passages outside to go explore and leave the grown-ups alone, fearing the worst if this argument with Utul got out of hand. He turned to his brother after having set the children loose in the pyramid and cleared his throat for the hypothetical microphone. “Do you know my name?” he asked, groaning when Utul gave a single, unapologetic shake of his head. “Damnit…”

“Anyway,” Cináed growled, helping Aggie sit down by the wall with Jenner and Harlock as he began snapping at Utul in a language no one but the siblings knew.

Louis remembered the term of this tongue being ‘Ualarhi’ when Max had been chided for using it after reuniting with Cináed, but no culture he knew of, ancient or prehistoric, had owned a language of that title. Wherever it came from, it was beautiful, and Louis had never seen Akna so expressive and talkative.

The siblings started hissing and snarling at each other in said beautiful foreign sentences, and Louis backed out of the dead-end chamber pit they’d found themselves in to give them space, well aware he was entirely unnecessary in this situation.   

He walked slowly with wide steps, hands clasped behind his back as he secretly studied everyone's location. He could hear Stacey and Jet aweing from somewhere under him, likely freaking out because they were seeing things most creatures never would, and other whispers of fascination floated through the air from members the original bus squad. They were all distracted—preoccupied. _Oblivious._

The pyramids held more secret passageways than anyone could imagine. Louis was sure archaeologists thought they had discovered all the Great Pyramids had to offer, but he was also sure that they hadn't. No one had—not since they were originally constructed and managed by those from that time period. In fact, Utul was likely the only thing alive that knew them inside and out, because Alexander certainly didn't.

In any case, the fact that they'd delved into some of the uncharted areas meant his group was scattered down in parts they wouldn't easily get out of. This was an opportunity—an ideal one—and Louis casually made his way past the unlucky skeletons en route to the hidden door they'd passed through. _What are you DOING, Louis?_

He found the still open door again without his flashlight, using his sense of smell to trace himself back the way they'd come, and slipped silently through the threshold. Scents were moving around everywhere as his group explored, so him wandering off wasn't specifically out of place. He couldn't have asked for anything better.

He snuck back across the railroad pathway and kept his footsteps quieter than a mouse, aware that wooden echoes were vastly easier to set apart from dense sandy ones. His mental drive to obtain freedom was starting to become a liability; he wanted nothing more than to sprint outside, the telling noise it would make be damned, and it took everything in him not to release his energy yet. He forced himself to walk like the sneakiest of spies, staying hyper-aware of everyone he was ditching so he could do this right.

The scent of the outside air hit his nostrils like a smoke-bomb, and he practically twitched with the desire to be in it, his mind nailed to the only track that mattered: get the fuck out of here. He knew somewhere in the recesses of his dedicated thoughts this probably wouldn’t end well, but did that little voice overshadow the redundant mental reminder that it might also end fine? No. It did not.

In a perfect moment that felt like all his wildest dreams had come true, he tiptoed out the northern entrance of Khufu. The windy night air whipped around his skin and pelted him with its wayward little grains of sand, and he trained his gaze to the west, staring into the vast desert he’d have to put between him and his group— _quickly_.  

Without another second of pointless fretting, Louis finally allowed that sprint he’d been jonesing for, pounding his still quiet feet to the northwest corner of Khufu and leaping off the last brick like a pebble from a slingshot. He soared through the air like a damn hawk for at least twenty metres, landing in the slippery sand and grappling for proper footing before resuming the race against the clock, Cináed’s notice of his disappearance, and Azazel’s unhelpful departure.

 _This had better fucking work, Alex,_ he thought to himself, stirring up mini-sandstorms with every stride of his intrepid and venturesome feet. _Your plans tend to suck, but this is all you got. Don’t fuck it up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. I may have teased you a bit with the mentions of Jerusalem in last chapter. You may have thought that would be this chapter. Idk, I would have come to that assumption. And then this title as well—but no. It's the NEXT chapter. Sorry. But he ditches in this one so technically it's still right. 
> 
> They'll see each other in real life soon. But it's probably not going to be very positive, is it? lol.
> 
> My favourite chapter I think is the next. I just love it, hopefully you will too. Tata for now.


	16. Vases, Hearts & Ankles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That chapter title will make sense later. OH GODS, I just couldn't wait. I literally couldn't. I need to get this out.

“Oh _enough_ of this—bring Alexander to me!” Cináed turned to order to Harlock, the child curled up with Jenner on the floor as Agnes leaned against the warlock for an attempted nap. Cináed had been arguing over what to do about Azazel with his siblings for far too long, and they'd been running in infinite circles over the proper action.

Eventually, the topic of the rescue mission of the Roman twins had come up, as something to just keep in mind, and ‘Max’ had explained it to the best of his ability, but he didn't know everything, and Alexander did.

“You want Alex?” Harlock asked, forcing himself to look away from Jenner’s chocolate brown eyes to meet Cináed’s.

“You're useless,” Cináed sneered impatiently, stomping to the archway of Utul’s room and bellowing for Alexander down the hall. “Alexander, get over here!”

Harlock’s eyebrows raised from the volume of the shout and he rubbed the inside of his closest ear, grimacing from the high-pitched ringing that was dancing around in his skull.

“Louis?” another voice from inside the pyramid called, a weighted silence filling the entire structure as everyone waited for a response.

Cináed growled and stepped outside, sweeping down the corridor until he ran into one of his frantic children. “Where is he?” he demanded, the child with the human sputtering innocently because he didn't have an answer. Cináed shoved past the child and kept walking, leaping up the steep stairs and coming to realize Alexander’s scent had retreated through the secret door to the upper levels. And it didn't smell like he was here anymore. “Aléxandros!” he shouted toward the open door, his eyes squinting in rage.

Nothing.

“Shit!” he hissed, running back down the steps and flying into Utul’s room, discovering all the scattered immortals had gathered inside like an emergency response team. “Why the fuck didn't he—I've been busy, why didn't any of you— _what_ is going on?” he growled, walking down the line of Alexander’s friends and searching their eyes for guilt.

“Is he really not here?” Niall whimpered, his inferior senses still detecting traces of Louis and not grasping that it wasn't enough to prove his presence.

“No, he's not,” Cináed snapped, now sure beyond all doubt that he'd left some time ago and none of his idiot friends had paid any attention.

“Why didn't any of _you_ notice?” Stacey accused without thinking, in a fret over her missing child that she couldn't censor if she tried.

“We're a little busy!” Cináed barked, advancing on her until Max pulled her into him by a hand around her waist to guard her. “I'm stuck in a room in maddeningly close proximity to my family. You have no idea how completely overpowering our scents are to each other—we can't focus on anything else. But you jesters were sightseeing, free to roam wherever you pleased, and you let Alexander disappear!”

“We didn't _let_ anything happen,” a child of Ráðspakr defended passionately, his Sukarno-bred lover beside him trying futilely to calm him down.

“Quiet, Erakus,” Harlock said sternly as Cináed turned his glare on him instead, his child apparently holding a bit of dominance over the Ráðspakr immortal because he backed off immediately.

“Where would he go?” he asked his eyepatch brat, staring his stood form down as he rubbed circles into the top of Jenner’s curly hair.

“Jerusalem,” Harlock stated firmly, cursing his every waking moment for not ensuring Louis stayed within sight. But how could he have known? _No, Harlock,_ he thought to himself, _You really should have known._

“The Holy City?” Cináed asked in puzzlement, taken aback because he probably would have accepted any answer but that one.

“He found out Azazel was there with the twins,” Harlock explained, flinching when Cináed reared back to hit him, but the slap never came because Agnes cleared her throat at just the right time.

“If you want to blame someone, blame me. He came upon this information because of the shared dream I cast,” the angry and pregnant woman barked, evidently not finding her lover’s raid search for a culprit very commendable.

“Then you aren't to do that anymore,” Cináed ordered, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow when Agnes balked in disbelief.

“Help me up,” Agnes muttered to Jenner and Harlock, using their instant support to walk her feet under her core and stand. She then brushed off the back of her dress and waddled up to Cináed, cradling her stomach with one arm as she viciously backhanded her vampire across the face. “Don't tell me what to do!” she roared, jabbing her finger into the dip between Cináed’s collarbones as he lowly hissed at her with dangerous fangs on display. “Stop that! If it was you, I’d do everything in the world to get you back, and so would you if it was me. You can’t bar me from my magic, I will do what I want; don’t even _try_ to control that!”

“Fine! But when I get Alexander back, I’m collaring him—put him on a fucking leash like a feral cat because he can’t be trusted!” Cináed bit, lightly slapping Aggie’s hand off his chest and shooting her a glare that said, “I’ll deal with you later.”

“You’re getting him back?” Niall asked hopefully, elated that Louis’ maker was thinking in that kind of direction—he certainly didn’t have to.

“He’s my child and he’s going to get himself killed. This time under _my_ watch, and that’s not happening. Of course I’m bringing him back,” Cináed huffed, breaking out in a fast-paced conversation with his family in Ualarhi to alert mostly Akna of this transition in plans. They came to an agreement and Cináed went around to kiss each sibling on the cheek, stopping last at Agnes so he could explain the deal here.

“You’re going alone, aren’t you?” the witch guessed, having read every detail of Cináed’s rather conclusive talk with his siblings.

“I am. I can’t leave you here unprotected, and if I show up with too many of us, Azazel is going to get too big a heads-up for my liking. I don’t want him planning. Stay here in this room and don’t leave for anything, my family will take care of you. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but if it takes me until sunrise, find your way to me and bring me back,” he requested, closing his eyes as Aggie nodded and touched his face to link them together.

“I will, I promise. Be careful,” she urged, not feeling all that great about Cináed running off alone to possibly encounter his only older brother. Anyone else, it would have been fine, but this is Azazel. Cináed is invincible to everyone in the world—except Azazel.

“You know I will be,” Cináed murmured as he placed two hands on Aggie’s bump, not needing to explain why he would treat this mission with the utmost caution. He was going to be a father; it was obvious he would save his life first before dumbly risking it.

“What are you still doing here?” Agnes challenged as she rose on her tiptoes to give him a parting kiss, swishing her wrists to get him moving. “Hurry up!”

Cináed snorted and ruffled her hair, speaking one last thing to his siblings before dashing out of Khufu to make for Jerusalem. The moment he was outside and running across the outskirts of the Sahara, his anger reached its peak. He should _not_ have to be sprinting away from his lover because Aléxandros needed to be rescued from a suicidal decision he’d made—but he was. And that bloody King was going to pay for it.

 

~~~

 

Louis couldn’t believe how different Jerusalem was from the last time he’d seen it. Evidently, the city was still a hot spot for conflict, and he knew they’d been having problems with the Palestinians for quite some time, so the land was just as rundown and tired as it usually was, but he more so means the size of it. The last time he’d seen it, The Holy City had been mostly a boxed-in stronghold, its people always hiding inside their massive walls to keep intruders out who sought to take the land for themselves.

Well, that remained true, the walls stood strong and proud, but buildings were taller now. Modernized. The city’s defensive barrier didn’t look so impassable anymore. The standalone structure of the infamous Dome of the Rock inside its heightened square was still the main feature that visiting eyes would be drawn to, but it had a gold plated dome that Louis hadn’t seen before, and the night lights that shone upon it made the dome look like the answer to _anyone’s_ prayers.

 _Enough staring at it_ , he thought to himself, tearing downhill across the surrounding fields of crops to reach that historic wall and hop it like a garden fence. He kept his nose alert and studious as he neared the city, scrambling up the beige wall that bordered it and standing on the top of it for a good bird’s-eye view. People trudged along the streets in their zombie-trances, and multiple predators were clearly stationed all over the city, so Louis hunkered down, realizing it wouldn’t be helpful to broadcast his presence to Israeli enemies.

He sniffed around for any tiny hint of Aelius blood, and/or Azazel, and he found nothing, but that didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t here—it just meant they weren’t close. So, in he went. He threw his legs over the wall and floated down behind a long line of Mediterranean Cypress trees, a splayed hand sliding along the wall to keep him close to it, disinclined to land on the spear-like plant life. He hit the ground in a crouch and stayed still to make sure no one had watched that process and was now coming after him, peeking through the gaps in the trees and sighing when it appeared he’d been unnoticed.

“Alright,” he said to himself, sidestepping to the edge of the trees and scooting around the last one like some sniper had a target on him somewhere, the little pencil pines scratching at his back as he looked every which way for hidden opponents. “ _Alright_ ,” he hissed more forcefully to give himself some motivation, running full speed into the busy streets and away from the dead-end wall that had felt like an ideal backdrop for his invisible sniper.

He squeezed through the humans that clogged the not so fortified alleyways, caged in on both sides by tan bricks of buildings and supported underneath by uneven stone paths with sewer manholes every three steps. He made random turns one after the other, climbing and descending slabbed staircases with no aimed direction at all. The scent of nearby predators was a constant worry, and his senses were in overdrive as he kept track of them and their distances.

He ran into so many people he kind of wished he was a Titan, able to just step over these buildings and kick every roadblock out of the way for his benefit. He was just done coming from another untrustworthy staircase, ducking under overhead arches of backalleys that really should have been placed higher when he caught it—Auron. “Fuck,” he whispered to himself, skating under the last arch like he had a snowboard and fixing his gaze west. Auron and...and who was that? _Michael._

He followed his nose and leapt over humans this time, uncaring of whether or not he’d be spotted because he hadn’t expected success to happen here. The fact that it had eclipsed his every morsel of common sense. He came into an intersection and spun around in a circle, eyes zooming in on a comatose woman pushing an empty baby carriage past a bench, a hungry dog sniffing around under tables for scraps, a kid holding a lackluster balloon that was five minutes from sinking, and a mailman riding languidly on a bicycle overflowing with envelopes that wouldn’t be sent. “Where are you?” he muttered, perpetually spinning for a clear route.

He suddenly heard a shout and his ears could have perked like a cat’s, his body taking him right to it because it stood out like a lighthouse—nobody yelled anymore. Not humans; they were too stupid and complacent to yell about anything. And that sounded a lot like Michael.

He tore through the streets and consistently soared from the tops of staircases, running down the stagnant decline to Jerusalem’s ground level and tossing obstructing humans over his shoulder like sacks of flour. The sounds of a scuffle came into his ears and he made a sharp right turn, secondly detecting snarls of rage into the picture and practically hyperventilating from the barrage of excitement.

He slapped both hands around the corners of the two buildings he’d been slithering between and launched himself into an open space, eyes landing immediately on Auron and Michael fighting by a stone fountain with bared fangs and murderous intentions. He ran forward before he could stop his feet, his only instinct being that he should probably pull them apart, but Michael noticed him before he could fully approach and widened his eyes in surprise, quickly shaking it off and holding Auron back as he grunted out, “Harry is that way!” with an overdone jut of his chin to the left.

“What…” Louis choked, so confused at the scene before him and the words he’d discerned that he wasn’t piecing everything together as fast as he needed to.

“Harry—that way! Go!” Michael shouted, dealing with Auron’s scratches to hopefully buy the King some time.

“I’ve seen you before!” Auron suddenly accused, lunging for Louis before Michael wrapped his arms around his hips and slammed them both into the ground.

“What are you doing here!” Auron barked, hissing like a mad animal as he recalled seeing that exact creature touching his brother and calling him by that name— _Harry_.

“Go!” Michael shouted incredulously, unsure how much longer he could hold his maker back by himself. Which was obviously a real problem because he was already slipping out of his grasp.

Louis hesitated like he wanted to help Michael or something until two very important details came to mind: 1) Louis hates Michael, and he probably _should_ die because the world would be a better place. 2) _HARRY_!

Without another word, Louis sprinted off in the only vague direction Michael had been able to point toward with his hands so full of Auron, and he caught the unbelievable sideways glimpse of Lauren and Lawrence barreling down the street across from him toward the Auron and Michael altercation, and his mind was now dangerously close to exploding. _What the fuck is going on here?_

Louis wasn’t sure if the twins had noticed him, because they certainly hadn’t stopped for anything, but Louis set the whole inexplicable thing aside, choosing to ignore its confusing purpose as he began the treacherous ascension back _up_ the city’s numerous staircases to find his lover. This was going to take a bit longer.

For a time that felt like years, Louis pounded his legs with their screaming muscles up stairs, along alleys, over shopping kiosks, humans, and he ripped the throat out of one predator who had spotted him before he finally found Hadrian’s scent. He felt a sob escape his throat, mostly likely because his emotions could sense this was the first time Louis would be seeing Harry since the amnesia lure, but his mind didn’t process the upcoming encounter anywhere near the same way. His mind was determined and vigilant—his heart was wailing with lightning strikes of depression. Best to keep those widely separate for this.   

He trampled on as Hadrian’s scent grew progressively stronger, the blood from his kill (who’d obviously stolen it himself) making his heart race like a toaster oven timer that was just about to ding. He ran down a luckily uncongested market square and whipped his head back and forth to check every alley as he passed, the scent of Hadrian wrapping around him like a noose and stinging his eyes.

Then he was looking at him. He'd just begun to fly by another alley, and he very nearly missed the chance to look down it from his speed, but he managed to—and there he was. Gum-deep in a human’s neck he'd quite literally just bitten.

Louis slammed on the brakes of his racecar legs and zoomed right past the dark alley, straight into a kiosk stocked with clay-made vases. The whole brown-tarp-covered structure caved in on top of him and he somehow managed to shatter every single work of art as he crashed to the ground, shards of vases embedded in his skin like he'd fought with a porcupine.

He groaned in disdain and pulled the largest pieces out of his limbs and torso, muttering to himself while he slapped at the tarp that covered his face. He'd been just about to detangle himself from the wreckage when the tarp was ripped away _for_ him, but there was no use thanking the helpful hand—because it was Hadrian who'd done it.

“Well you're a pretty little thing,” he crooned like a typical predator, smirking at Louis’ pitiful position and dragging his eyes up and down the lines of his body. “You may smell like one of us, but you're an Elder and I don't know you—so I know you're not. What's a Guardian doing in an overrun city like this?” he inquired with a sickening curl of his lips, fangs shining in the moonlight as he leaned over him.

“Oh, cut the _shit_ , Hadrian. You're not scary,” Louis sneered, flailing about to launch the last bits of broken wood boards from his frame and free himself.

“Yeah, I'll admit you're strong,” Hadrian noted without fear, that lack of worry doing its job to concern Louis. Why the fuck wouldn't he be—

Hadrian interrupted Louis’ troubled thoughts by slamming his booted foot down on his ankle, the bones of it cracking loudly under the force as he cried out in annoyed anguish. “What the _fuck_ , Harry!” he shrieked, lurching up to stab his lover’s calf with a piece of vase.

Hadrian hissed and jumped out of the obliterated kiosk mess, bending over to yank the object out of his leg while the Elder he'd fractured shakily stood on one functional leg. “Harry...I knew I'd seen you before. You were in Rome,” he said, a foggy memory coming to him in which this immortal had crowded his space and poked at his face while he called him the wrong name.

“Fuck’s _sake_ , Harry. Rome is _not_ where you know me from...actually, no wait. Technically it is, but that was centuries ago,” Louis rambled, probably sounding downright insane but he didn't care. Harry would understand again someday.

“My _name_ is—”

“Hadrianus, I fucking get that!” Louis shouted, picking up a wooden pole that had snapped into a stake and hurling it at his unrequited lover’s chest.

Hadrian caught it without a blink and tossed it aside, rushing forward and dragging the weird Elder out of the rubbish while he whined in pain from his ankle. “Who are you?” he demanded, smacking him into the wall of the alley he'd come from and firmly holding him there.

“Right now? Your worst fucking enemy,” Louis snarled in rage, headbutting the Roman and slashing his claws across his chest when he bent backward.

“You little savage,” Hadrian spat, reaching out for the Elder with an angry hand and fully expecting to wrap it around his neck, but suddenly he was gone. Then he was on his back.

“You have no idea!” Louis growled in response, having sprung up on Harry’s back and latched onto him like a flea. “You—do not understand—who you are dealing with—you—bottom bitch slut,” he panted, wincing every time Hadrian threw his weight back to knock Louis into the wall behind them.

“How—would you know—how I take dick?” Hadrian heaved just as breathlessly, scratching at the arms wound around his neck and trying fold over forward to fling him over his head.

“What! Did you really not top until Antinous?” Louis found it in himself to cackle, Hadrian’s response to his taunt taking him by offended surprise.

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about?” Hadrian huffed, finally disconnecting the Elder’s arms only to have his legs constrict even tighter around his hips.

“Jupiter, Hadrianus, how many Roman soldiers did you let have a taste of that ass?” Louis laughed, aware now that Hadrian’s memories had been wiped clean of all his lovers, leaving only his teenage sexual escapades and anything he might have done since the lure, but Louis really hoped he hadn't. “You let any grown man with a big cock slide between these prepubescent legs? Huh? Are you _joking_?” he screeched, flying off Hadrian’s back simply because he didn't want to touch him.

“Are you _done_ —”

“No!” Louis snapped, impressively jumping up to kick Hadrian in the chest when he lunged for him, sending him a few metres through the alley, and then landing back on that same good leg. “This is why I _hate_ Romans! You vixens are disgusting!” he spat, crossing his arms and huffing in undeserved betrayal. _This dishonest little worm._

“I don't understand your insults at all, but you're fucking irritating—”

“Have you no shame?” Louis begged as though Hadrian hadn't said a thing, making wild, incredulous gestures with his arms as Hadrian angrily stood to his feet. “ _Class_? I can see why you lied to me—I would have scrubbed your hole with a cactus! I would take a Persian whore over you!” he bit, limping forward as Hadrian crouched down in attack-mode.

“Shut _up_ , already! You're driving me nuts!” the Roman growled, rushing toward the Elder and tackling him to the ground when he was too slow to evade.

“Same! Very much same!” Louis assured as he wrestled with Hadrian on the bricks of stone beneath them, his gradually-healing ankle hissing in protest every time he knocked it into something. “I'm gonna fuck you to death in that next dream, Harry. You are so doomed,” he vowed, knowing his lover wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about but needing to voice that anyway.

“You call me a vixen and now you want to fuck me? You're quite the hypocrite, aren't you?” Hadrian sneered, snatching the confusing Elder’s arm and dragging his fangs down the skin to hopefully reach an artery in his wrist and fuck him up a bit.

“ _Ach_ —that's gonna _scar_ , you animal!” Louis squeaked, repeatedly punching his lover’s thick skull to dislodge him. Hadrian pulled off anyway with an asthmatic gasp, his pupils blown with an intensity that had Louis nervously squirming under him.

“You...you have my blood in your veins. This is _my_ blood!” Hadrian cried, in clear confoundment over how that would be possible. “My maker and myself flow through you, and I've never seen you before... _who the fuck are you_?” he screamed, apparently not taking kindly to the mystery and seeing Louis as a malice-driven threat.

“I'll just casually explain, shall I?” Louis scoffed with a roll of his eyes, getting serious when he had to dodge a kill-shot fist to his skull. “Shit! Get off!” he commanded, kicking Hadrian away with both legs and barreling backward over his shoulders to get a metre of distance.

“Why do you have my blood!” Hadrian interrogated, stalking forward as Louis hobbled out into the square outside the cramped alley.

“I took it from you! You have my blood in you too, dumbass,” Louis replied, frantically looking around for a feasible weapon and sighing when nothing was immediately logical to wield. He doubted chucking a crate of apples at Hadrian was going to win him the battle. He continued to back up like a wounded gazelle as Hadrian followed like a starved lion, cursing his weakened ankle because it had put him at an uncommon disadvantage against Hadrian. He would pay for this someday.

“ _When_?” Hadrian prompted, not buying the tale because he was positive he'd never participated in feedings with this clumsy Elder. But they still had each other’s blood, that was a fact— _how_.

“I don't know, why don't you ask your Daddy, Azazel? I'm sure he could break it down for you—if he didn't have you in a lure!” he blurted, pointlessly outing the original’s crime because his subject wouldn't believe it anyway.

“I'm under no lure—”

“Would you _come back_!” Louis passionately interrupted, using every piece of his own compulsion to break Azazel’s, but it was no use. Hadrian was too long gone. Hadrian’s eyes didn't even twitch from his feeble lure, but he clearly felt the attempt because said eyes narrowed in contempt. “Fuck! I HATE THIS! I'd rather _die_ than watch this happen!” he sobbed, his heart finally joining his mind as his emotions spilled over the brim of their hidden jar.

“I can make that happen,” Hadrian snarled, flying for the Elder and finally catching his neck as he knocked him onto his back. He dug his claws under the vampire’s jaw and grappled with the act of trying to behead him, not finding too much success because the pest was fighting back with some rabid energy he hadn't had before.

“Don't make me fucking kill you, Harry!” Louis barked through his tears, sinking his claws into his lover’s throat to throw him off his murderous progress. It semi-worked because Hadrian pulled one of his hands back to deal with Louis’, but now they were both just choking and gurgling on their own blood while they tried to save themselves. “I swear to Zeus, I'll fucking do it,” he rasped, spitting gathered blood from his mouth and digging deeper into Harry’s adam’s apple. “If you're gonna kill me, I swear I'll kill you first!” he pledged, his emotions running on such a high frequency that he didn't notice Cináed and Azazel both had arrived until they were pulling him and Hadrian apart.

The shock hit him like a train and he slapped a hand over his five deepest puncture wounds under his chin, staring speechlessly at the violently coughing Hadrian in Azazel’s strong arms from the identical cage of Cináed’s.

“Azazel,” Cináed greeted in a sneer, the brothers a mere five steps apart while they held their restless children away from each other.

“Perfect timing, wouldn't you say?” Azazel replied, presenting his forearm to Hadrian and shushing him when he whimpered and bit into it to replenish himself.

“Cináed—”

“Quiet,” Cináed snapped to his insolent brat of a child, giving him his arm as well because it acted like a pacifier and instantly shut him up.

“I _knew_ I should have left here sooner. But to think he'd come alone...” Azazel scoffed while he seethed at Alexander, his dangerous glare flicking back up to his meddling brother. “You’ll get him out of here if you know what's good for you,” he warned, barely batting an eye when Auron rushed up to them, followed closely by two brunette twins and Michael. The perplexing part was that Michael flanked Cináed like he was even _on_ their side, but he let it go, happy to have his Roman twins in one place and decently unharmed.

“Hadrian!” Auron cried as he dropped to his knees to look up at his damaged brother, inspecting his slashed and ravaged throat when he released Azazel’s arm and whined for him. “What happened?” he begged, looking over his shoulder and finding that same Elder from before. “You again!”

“Enough!” Cináed huffed, petting Alexander’s hair while he sobbed uncontrollably and reached out for the child in Azazel’s embrace. “We're leaving. And you're going to let us. Because I don't care _how_ fast you are, brother—you know if we get into it, I'd kill at least _one_ of those twins,” he stated, noting the defensive flash of Azazel’s white eyes as he hit the nerve.

“Put that kid on a leash, Cináed. If I ever see him again, he's dead,” Azazel promised, slowly backing away with Hadrian as Auron glued himself to his side and glared at their opponents.

Cináed said nothing in response to the threat, dragging Alexander back as well and ignoring every desperate cry of “Harry!” that gutturally shoved out of his throat. The original brothers kept their eyes only on each other, slinking back to opposite sides of the square before simultaneously turning around and hurriedly retreating.

Alexander wailed in protest and Cináed dipped down to lift his whole body into his arms, running alongside three unknown immortals to get somewhere far away from Azazel.

Louis squeezed his eyes closed and cried into Cináed’s neck, wracking sobs making his spine twitch and curl him into a ball. He absolutely could not fathom what just happened. That entire event had been a disaster, and had it not been for their creators’ interjection, him and Hadrian may actually have ended up killing each other.

That knowledge alone was nothing short of chilling, and he was relieved beyond measure that it hadn't come to that, but now _leaving_ felt like the worst possible outcome. He'd had Hadrian in his arms—regardless of whether or not that certain hold had been violent and combative, he’d _physically held him_. In the real world. And now he was gone. “Damnit!” he cursed, making himself even smaller and shutting out the world around him while he was led away from his ridiculously unreachable lover. And he doesn’t use that term lightly—Harry was _unreachable_.

“In here!” Lauren’s concerned voice urged, Louis paying attention to the change in atmosphere and sound as they entered some building to catch a break. He squeaked when he was suddenly falling from being evidently dropped, but his back was met with the soft cushions of a couch and he quickly recovered from the moment of panic. This environment, however, meant that he was free to indulge in other forms of panic.

“Is he okay?” Lawrence asked, unnerved by the heaves of breath that were getting stuck in Alexander’s throat.

“Hyperventilating,” Cináed stated, waltzing over and sitting himself down beside his temporarily living and oxygen-deprived idiot. “Babes, you need to calm down,” he tried, sighing in defeat when Alexander only whimpered in annoyance and shot him in a glare. “Alright, fine,” he relented, taking Alexander’s wrist in his hand and turning his head to sink his teeth down into the flesh.

Louis’ breath came back to him in one fell swoop, his lungs opening up like bloomed flowers as the endorphins crawling up his arm got to them. His hips flexed off the couch and he squirmed as Cináed continued, staring his maker down as he drank and wondering how the fuck Agnes dealt with this on a regular basis. All too soon, Cináed was done, throwing Louis his own arm back and standing up to pace the room, an obvious lecture on the horizon.

“What the _fuck_ were you thinking?” Cináed barked like a ranting parent while Alexander slowly sat up, his words bowing the King’s guilty head in shame just like the mischievous and insolent child he was. He was then struck with a future vision of scolding his own snotty teenager in the same way and he almost grinned like a lovestruck fool, huffing his personal misstep off and walking to the fireplace of the abandoned home they’d holed up in to bring some light and warmth to the environment.

“I was thinking that I wanted to find Hadrian,” Louis meekly responded as he held his bleeding wrist, realizing it sounded incredibly naïve and immature, but then again, he’d known it was from the start. He’d known how stupid it was long before he actually did it.

“Yeah, I know,” Cináed lilted much too cheerfully, sparking the fireplace alive with a roar from the lighter fluid and plopping down in a loveseat adjacent to the couch. The bigendered twins and blonde boy were still stood awkwardly by the closed door, but considering he didn’t even know them, Cináed refused to acknowledge them. His business was with his instinct-ruled idiot child. “And you found him, didn’t you? Congratulations. You also found _Azazel_ —and if I hadn’t come exactly when I did, you’d be in the otherworld right now!” he informed, falling back into his chair when Alexander only started sniveling again.

“What even happened?” Louis asked with an uneasy voice, his inflection monotone because he was trying to talk around adamant sobs. “I was too engrossed with Hadrian, I didn't even know you were there until—”

“Yes, I'm painfully aware of your engrossment, you one-track fruit bat. You’re in deep shite for making me leave my woman, and run across a fucking desert to get to you— _in Jerusalem_ —and save you from getting killed. You can’t even imagine how angry I am right now, but I’m holding back because you look like a house of cards, and I’m not going to be the one to topple you.”  

“I'm okay, I just…” Louis trailed, his frustration taking over as he groaned into the living room. “That whole thing sucked! Everything about that sucked!” he snapped, finally processing the event in the order things occurred and whipping around to face the three silent individuals in the room. “What the _fuck_ are you doing here?” he asked to all three, narrowing his eyes until Lauren caved and spoke.

“Lawrence and I have been following Michael this whole time, and he led us straight to Auron—”

“Hold up...you’ve been _following_ me?” Michael asked in shock, rounding on the twins with a furious expression. “Is that how you know my name?”

“Yeah, we knew who you were. All the Guardians know who you are; they pointed us in your direction and we followed you to Istanbul, through Turkey and Syria, then hid out in the deserts of Jordan to let you get all the way across, then raced after you later and found you in Jerusalem,” Lauren said courageously, refusing to back down in the face of a vampire who hadn’t even realized he’d been tracked.

“How did you...never mind,” Michael huffed, taking a good look at himself and his worth—was he really that oblivious?

“How did _you_ know where to find Auron?” Louis asked the evil Roman’s earliest creation, twisting all the way around to sit on his knees and lean over the back of the couch. Cináed evidently wanted to know all this too, or at least had buckets of patience, because he wasn’t interrupting.

“I didn’t, at first. I got word of Romania so I scoped that out for a bit, but it was obvious they’d either moved on or hadn’t been there at all, so I kept going, knowing that Azazel was most likely to go somewhere close to Africa. If I didn’t find them in Asia, I would have scoured all of Africa. Azazel likes deserts, and I got word of Jerusalem from a group of us in Lebanon; you know the rest,” Michael said with a shrug, squinting his eyes when Alexander scoffed in protest.

“I do _not_ know the rest!” Louis stated, blowing the hair off his face and pointing an accusatory finger at the Elder. “Because when _I_ found you, you and Auron were fighting to the death! What the fuck happened there? You’re his favourite.”

“Fuck if I know,” Michael grunted, sighing in reluctance to continue but he knew he had to because Alexander would never give this up. “Alright, he was happy to see me at first. He knew who I was; I don’t what kind of memories they were, but there was obviously some positive ones...he hugged me, and I tried to get him to come with me—”

“Running from Azazel would have been pointless—”

“I _know_ , Alex! Don’t interrupt me. I know Azazel better than you do; trust me, I had a plan,” Michael growled, challenging the King with a glare to keep mouthing off and then shaping up to resume when he thankfully didn’t. “Anyway, Auron didn’t take the offer very well; started talking about how he couldn’t ever leave his brother, and I tried to remind him that he hated his brother, lived to kill his brother and shit...he got pretty furious. I could have handled it better, but I was upset; things escalated, and you got there maybe ten minutes into that fight,” he listed, closing himself off from the hurt the altercation had caused him because he needed to be strong.

“I'm impressed you _lasted_ ten minutes. And you’d passed by Hadrian at some point?” Louis guessed, wanting that last little piece of the story to fit in.

“Yeah, I followed Auron’s scent and passed Hadrian on the way, but he was busy killing things and didn’t even look up. Azazel wasn’t around either. I think he was underground somewhere, because he definitely wasn’t in the city. Eventually, these two twins come out of nowhere, _obvious_ Guardians, start _helping_ me fight Auron ‘cuz I was losing…” he trailed, rubbing the heels of his palms over his blue eyes in troubled frustration.

“We all fought for a while,” Lawrence took over for Michael, recognizing he was at the end of his rope for this conversation. “And then Auron perked up like a meerkat. I think he must have smelled Hadrian’s blood in the air, which was your doing, and he got rampant to leave, but we wanted to give you time—”

“So you _did_ see me,” Louis breathed, finally making sense of that weirdest five seconds he’d ever experienced. For Michael to be fighting Auron, the fucking twins, Hadrian, then the originals...that had been a mess.

“Of course we saw you, silly,” Lauren laughed, shaking her head like Alexander should know not to ponder on things that self-explanatory. “Eyes or not, we knew you were there. Your scent is very known to us. Auron really wanted to get to him, and we piled on him like rugby players, but he crawled away and ran up to you and we followed…”

“I had smelled Azazel maybe five seconds prior,” Michael informed, Louis’ head constantly moving side to side as each person threw in bits of their account. “Then another one. I knew it was an original. Azazel had talked of others; not their relation, but just that there _were_ others. I wasn’t too worried about Azazel, but I didn’t want Auron getting killed by the other one or something. Then we got there and Azazel had Hadrian, the other one had you, you both looked like shit—”

“First off, his name is Cináed. I mean, he’s right behind me, you could at least give him the proper recognition,” Louis began, turning over his shoulder to motion to his maker.

“I don’t give a shit,” Cináed said with a predictable irritation in his tone, staring pensively at the fireplace and ignoring the lot of them.

“Alright, whatever. Second, why did _you_ , Michael, come with my side?” Louis demanded, not understanding the thought process of such a dastardly predator to make him automatically gravitate toward Louis’ group.

“Come on, that’s obvious. Auron is my maker, and I can’t disobey him normally...I would never let him go like that. But that’s not my Auron. That’s not him. I have never felt so disconnected from him in my life. I won’t stand beside a creature who has no recollection of who he is. Who coddles his brother; when the main reason Auron even exists is for revenge. It’s all wrong. So Auron is...my enemy right now...especially after that fight. And these twins helped me when they could have gotten rid of me a few clear times, I don’t know…” he trailed, meeting the twins’ eyes and giving a prideful shrug. “Enemy of my enemy—”

“Don’t you dare say ‘is my friend,’ Michael, or I’ll break your face. Don’t forget you helped kill me,” Louis snarled, actually smiling when Michael put on a face of offense.

“Me? Friends with you? Us? _Friends_? I _hate_ you, Alexander,” Michael assured, a mirrored smile turning his lips up without conscious effort. _Damnit...I think we actually might be…_

“Good,” Louis quipped, sitting back down on his heels after getting that settled. “Now what?”

“I keep following him,” Michael said, stretching side to side as though that were to happen imminently.

“And we keep following you,” Lauren smirked, her arm around her brother’s shoulders as he knocked his head against hers.

“You know...I think we can go together this time,” Michael said to the twins, tying the shoelaces that didn’t need the action just to have something to do.

“So what the fuck is happening with the world right now?” Louis asked the only predator he knew besides his own twins, confused as to why everything was up and running when their leader was out of commission.

“Auron’s still running shit, Alex,” Michael said, tying his shaggy hair up into a ponytail to keep it off his face. “Didn’t you see the broadcast?”

“Oh fuck, that’s right,” Louis muttered, glaring at the floor as the sight of the twins on the television came back again. _I think I’ve been purposefully blocking that out._ “Well...what is the predators’ plans? What are—”

“Alexander...would you take a look at who you’re talking to?” Michael reasoned, his hands sweeping down his frame to knock some sense into the King. “You think I’m gonna reveal all our secrets? I’m still a leader in this equation...I just want my higher up back, so I’m taking a break.”

“Well, have a nice vacation,” Louis sighed, hissing when Michael ruffled his hair and made for the door.

“You be careful too, alright?” Lauren asked the King, not even trying to wave to Azazel’s brother because he was still staring at the fire and not looking too willing to participate in farewells.

“I will. Bye, guys,” he said with a grin and wave, blowing air through his lips when they all exited the borrowed house and shut the door. “I just learned so much—”

“Not now, Alexander,” Cináed scolded, appearing to focus on something with all his might that had Louis sinking down into the couch in fear. Was Azazel back? Was something wrong? What was—

“ _Ahh_ , there you are,” Agnes jarringly quipped into the room, falling down from the excitement of the travel straight onto Cináed’s lap.

“There’s my little mama,” Cináed cooed, the contrast to his behavior only seconds ago dropping Louis’ jaw. What a sap. “I could feel you reaching out to me, so I stopped moving,” he informed, almost sounding like he wanted praise for his good doings.

“You did wonderfully, it wasn’t hard to find you at all. Now...hello, Louis,” she said, fidgeting around on Cináed’s lap until she could face him.

“Hey, Aggie—”

“Absolutely not!” Cináed snapped, hissing at the elbow he got to his ribs. “What? That’s _my_ name for you,” he stressed to his annoyed lover, wondering why the fuck that was so hard to understand.

“Later,” Agnes ordered, holding her hand out for Louis to take. “We should go back to the pyramid now. Sun will be up soon, and we need sleep.”

“I agree,” Louis said with an agreeable nod, pushing himself off the couch and walking up to the pair.

Agnes smiled and touched both of their faces, mouthing an incantation as Louis felt himself being dragged through space. And then?

Pyramid.

“Wow, that wasn’t so bad this time—”

“Louis WILLIAM TOMLINSON!” Stacey shrieked, her hard hand striking across his face before his eyes could even adjust.

“Sorry, Mom,” he groaned, knocked back two feet at least when she threw her arms around him.

“Really Louis, what the fuck were you thinking?” Niall added from behind her, a whole mess of arms finding their way to him to either pat him on the back, smack him in the head, or wrap around him.

“That will _not_ be happening again, I assure you,” Louis chuckled, feeling up his arm at the two lines of scars he now bore. Harry’s fangs had been in him not an hour ago, and he already missed them terribly, predatorial fangs or not.

“There is one way it can,” Agnes said from his left side, making him apologetically shove his mother away from him to glare at the witch in suspicion. He quickly looked around the room to document everything, and noted all his friends and family, the originals on Utul’s bed with him talking in Ualarhi, and he breathed a sigh of relief. At least everyone here was still okay. After affirming that, he turned his eyes back on Agnes, crossing his arms in doubt as she smirked at him.

“You’d _do_ that again?” he asked skeptically, considering the first time she’d done it had ultimately caused him to run away.

“Are you going to go chasing after him again?” she challenged, already feeling pretty sure that Louixander had learned his lesson.

“No, never in a million years.”

“Then come out here,” she proposed, leading him out of Utul’s room and into a side chamber that had a small hemp mat on the floor and other useless jar things. “I have a feeling Hadrian is sleeping; if he looks like you do, he’s bound to,” she guessed, checking Louis’ face to see if he felt the same way.

“Yeah, he always sleeps off pain and anger,” Louis chuckled with a nod of his head, taking off his necklace that he'd had hiding underneath his shirt and handing it to the witch to start the spell. “Someone give us a torch,” he called back into the room, smiling at Marley when he walked into the room and held the torch steady for when Aggie would steal half its flame.

“I’ll keep this up as long as I can, but you need to get your talks in fast, alright? I’m tired too; though, with Cináed here, I can stay strong for longer than I could alone,” she said in a voice that already sounded tense with exertion, drawing a circle in the tough sand with her nail and rolling her neck in preparation. “Just make it relatively speedy.”

“Oh, believe me, it’ll be speedy,” Louis growled, already planning out the terrible shit he would do to Hadrian for these scars. But who is he kidding? He’ll probably just join Harry’s crying and lie on the floor with him like the two depressed slugs they are.

He went through the motions of staying still as she touched his forehead and the necklace; cutting himself and covering the necklace in his blood, dropping it in the circle, listening to her chants, squinting at the growth of the fire, the heightened volume of her shouts, and then?

Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vases, hearts, and ankles. All broken. 
> 
> He absolutely does not JUST cry like a useless slug when he sees him. Oh, man. He's really angry. That's a fun scene, too.


	17. We Go To Russia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm back already? huh...interesting. I think i just wanted to give you some smut. You've waited quite a long time.  
> Also, you'll figure out what I mean right afterwards, but I fit EVERY SONG OFF THE HALBUM IN THAT lol. Ridiculous.

_“Wake the fuck up, you sack of shit!” Louis screamed, somehow having ended up straddling Harry’s hips as he lay on the floor of the music room, asleep in a dream. Wouldn't be the weirdest thing._

_Harry’s eyes flew open in shock, flinging Louis off himself as he held a hand to his pounding heart_ — _apparently they were alive in this...this...Louis… “Oh Gods!” he wailed, eyes fixing on his lover in despair as he recalled every gnawing detail of the last time they'd seen each other in the real world. A mere hour ago..._

 _“Yes. Cry. Cry like a fucking baby for what you did,” Louis seethed, crawling back over to his shaking lover and jabbing a finger at his own forearm to showcase his new scars. “You see this? This was SO unnecessary, you brutish animal_ — _”_

_“I'm so sorry, Louis,” Harry blubbered, tears racing down his cheeks as he tried to cover his eyes to block the sight._

_“No, you're gonna look at me,” Louis snapped, wrenching Harry’s wrists away from his face and hissing at him until he opened his eyes out of fear. “I know it wasn't you, but you're a real piece of work when left to your own devices, you know that?” he snarled, darting forward and crashing their lips together because he couldn't waste time here._

_Harry gasped into the kiss, unsure as to how he should respond when Louixander was so angry with him. His sobs never stopped as Louis claimed his mouth, routinely biting his lip until he drew blood._

_“Roll over,” Louis growled against his lips, hands tearing Harry’s shirt away as he said it._

_“W-what?” Harry stuttered, pulling away and staring at Louis’ forceful hands._

_Louis backhanded Harry across the cheek and flipped him onto his stomach, disposing of both their clothes in record time. “Along with the many, MANY attacks you wreaked on me_ — _my ankle thanks you_ — _you also hit me with an infuriating secret about you. You’d always told me I'd been the only one between your legs. And you lied, didn't you, Hadrian?” he purred with a dark malice laced in his tone, satisfied by Harry’s guilty whimper._

_“I didn't want you to know,” Harry rasped, yelping when both of Louis’ palms came cracking down upon his arse cheeks._

_“Too bad, slut. You fucked that up yourself. Bet you're really regretting that lie now, huh?” Louis taunted as he jumped down Harry’s naked body so his face was aligned with his hips, sinking his fangs into Harry’s right arse cheek and dragging them down to the thigh._

_Harry squealed in both torment and pleasure, attempting to look over his shoulder but the flood of endorphins had done their job of drastically slowing him down, and the next thing he knew, Louis had already mounted him. “Shouldn't we talk about this?” he whined pleadingly, screeching through clenched teeth when his hole was split by his lover’s dominating cock._

_“We talk as I fuck you,” Louis groaned in carnal bliss, snapping his hips back to drive them deeper, fucking fast off the bat because Hadrian didn't deserve prep. “Have you let anyone fuck you after Antinous?” he grunted, Harry’s warmth around his cock blurring his thoughts and making it reasonably difficult to uphold conversation._

_“Just you, baby, I promise,” Harry choked, arching his hips up to bask in the jagged pain of Alexander’s thrusts._

_“Sorry, what's my fucking name?” Louis demanded, incredulous that Harry would have the nerve to call him ‘baby’ in his position._

_“Just you, my King,” Harry amended, an old, familiar wave of submissive bliss washing over his emotional pain. He surrendered himself to the hands of his King, turning off the white noise in his head so he could exist only for him and his enjoyment._

_“Uh-huh. And what have you done since forgetting me?” Louis inquired, a heavy, guilt-tripping strain on the word ‘forgetting.’_

_“A few humans,” Harry groaned, inwardly hissing when Louis pulled him up by the hips so he rested on his knees._

_“Ch! That's still disgusting, but it's fine. Humans are meaningless_ — _unless you're lying to me!” Louis barked, amping the force of his thrusts to get an immediate answer._

_“I'm not, I swear! Only you have done this since I met you!” Harry assured, transferring all his weight to his upper chest and reaching back to spread himself for his King. “I'm so sorry I lied to you. Punish me,” he moaned, squeaking when his King’s claws sank into his hip bones._

_“You definitely deserve it...I missed you so much, Harry. I missed you so fucking much_ — _and you break my FUCKING ANKLE!” he raged, gasping as Harry’s hole clenched around his cock, the Roman ultimately making things worse for himself by the outcome of a tighter slide._

_“I didn't know,” Harry pleaded, begging his King to lay off the Jerusalem bits because they'd been entirely out of either of their control._

_“And I understand that_ — _doesn't mean I'm not pissed at you,” Louis grumbled, the teaser of a climax waiting for him just around the corner if he wanted it._

_“Mégas, can I come?” Harry asked as politely as he could, holding himself back impressively far so he wouldn't anger Alexander any more than he already had._

_“Are you seriously asking me that right now?” Louis moaned, his breath hard to catch as his lungs tightened in anticipation._

_“Please?” Harry whined, his prostate on fire from the constant scratches to the itching nerves inside of him._

_“Fine, but I'm gonna make it hurt,” Louis warned, his cock leaking spurts of pre-come as he chased the finale._

_“O-okay,” Harry stuttered, sparing a few seconds to theorize on the ambiguity of that threat before he was sidetracked by the crawling arrival of his orgasm_ — _and then Louis shattered his hip bone. “FUCK!” he roared in delicious agony, swept up in a monster tornado of two differing and equally powerful sensations_ : _ecstasy and excruciating hellfire._

_“Take it,” Louis growled, emptying himself into Harry’s spasming warmth with a guttural snarl, hissing as he flattened them both and bit into his neck._

_“Mégas,” Harry whimpered, the sharp torment of his right hip bone against the floor etching tears in his eyes. Louis had waited until the exact moment in which he'd achieved his release, and then annihilated his hip with a strong fist. Harry couldn't be more in love. The endorphins were acting as a medicinal agent to soothe his burning and splintered bones, so that was nice, but being pushed into the floor was nothing short of unnecessarily cruel._

_Louis pulled his teeth and cock out in one fell swoop, abandoning Harry without a care and flipping him over so the Roman didn't have to do it himself, giving one simple breath of a laugh through his nostrils as he watched him twitch in anguish. “Walk it off.”_

_“You are such a bitch, Alexander,” Harry muttered, his hip admittedly healing faster in this dream than it would in the real world and giving him some spark back._

_“If you think that was bad, wait ‘til I get you back in reality,” Louis taunted, tickling the bottom of Harry’s foot until he jerked his knee up, causing a blast of pain to wrack through his injury. “Your fractured hip is gonna feel like a bop on the nose_ —”

 _“First of all!” Harry snapped, skillfully propping himself up on his elbows to glare at Louis with all his might. “It's not ‘fractured’_ — _it's obliterated. Secondly! What about you, huh? You think I'm such a slut, but look at your fucking neck!” he snarled, his earlier inability to wield dominance washing away like sand into a tide. “Maybe I was more promiscuous than I led on_ — _in my ancient PAST_ — _but I seem to remember mine and Auron’s fangs being the only ones to have pierced that skin of yours in this life. And they were_ — _the last time I fucking saw you! What the fuck have YOU been doing?” he bellowed, fangs drawn and dripping endorphins down onto his chest._

_“That is no concern of yours,” Louis tried to say, fighting against admitting that he’d acquired new bite marks on his body._

_“Are you serious?” Harry cried dubiously, laughing to the ceiling as though it was the funniest thing Louis had ever said. “Those bite marks are from different vampires—they’re not the same fucking immortal. Who—the fuck—has been touching you?” he demanded, pushing through the pain to fling himself forward and knock Louis onto his back._

_“Fine, you hypocrite! Cináed...Max...Aguta...Akna,” Louis listed with a point to each of their scars, having one from Max, two from his maker, two from Aguta, and one from the Mayan original._

_“And you just couldn’t say no, you addict?” Harry sneered, wishing he could burn Louis’ scars off his skin—they weren’t from him and he never wanted to look at them._

_“Max, Aguta, and Akna are Cináed’s siblings, potato-for-brains! Originals do what they fucking want; you know I couldn’t stop that! And what about you and Azazel? Your neck is taken too, you ignoramus!” Louis jabbed, flicking Harry on the throat and all the puncture wounds toward the back of his neck. “And what’s this?” he emphasized, dragging his nail down bite marks under Harry’s chin. “Is this Auron as well? I think it is—yeah, that’s Auron embedded in your flesh. You’ve been letting Auron bite you! You’re gonna tell me you ‘couldn’t stop’ THAT?”_

_“I’m not myself out there!” Harry defended, covering Auron’s bite marks and cringing that he’d have those forever too._

_“So we’re both guilty—and powerless to do anything about it,” Louis huffed, hating to admit they were both reasonably innocent because he really wanted to continue fighting. There was one thing, however, that he desired far greater than fighting. “Are you gonna fuck me yet?” he challenged, parting his legs and throwing them around Harry’s back._

_“You want me to fuck you with a broken hip?” Harry laughed, dropping his face onto Louis’ chest and slowly shaking his head like his forehead was a rolling pin._

_“This dream isn’t going to last forever—”_

_“I didn’t say no,” Harry interrupted, going through the motions of gathering blood and wetting his interested cock._

_“I’m sorry about your hip,” Louis muttered, lifting his upper body off the floor just enough to kiss the outside crease of Harry’s lips._

_“No—” Harry began, groaning and hissing along with his lover as he pushed inside him, “—you’re not,” he said, sheathing himself and trying to think around the still throbbing hip he suffered with. “But I’m sorry about your ankle.”_

_“I miss you,” Louis whined, helping his lover rock into him with an arm supporting his lower back—times like this was when their height difference was beneficial._

_Harry sighed and curled his upper back so he could nuzzle into Louis’ cheek, one hand splayed out next to his shoulder to support his weight, the other holding the back of his King’s head with a propped elbow. “You’ll never know what it does to me to remember that I forgot you. It is the worst pain imaginable. To know I left you. To know I hurt you. Tell me we’re gonna make it through this, Alexander—I can’t bear it anymore,” he cried through a choking throat, his tears falling down onto Louis’ cheeks with audible splashes._

_“We’re gonna make it, baby. We’re gonna make it,” Louis panted, his body thriving in its safe place as his contrite Roman made the sweetest love to him since that night in the Sparrow house after he’d gotten assaulted by Auron._

_“I don’t deserve you after this—I’ve done nothing but horrible things to you,” Harry professed, completely disregarding his searing hip to make narrow infinity signs with them into his King._

_“I’m not innocent, my love. This may be the worst thing we’ve ever gone through, but—”_

_“It’s not. Your death was the worst,” Harry stated, lifting his face up to meet Louis’ unique and comforting eyes. “You better not die, Alexander. Please, Gods, don’t die. I won’t even understand what happened, I won’t be able to—please, Louis, don’t you die on me. Be careful out there; I can’t lose you again. Not like that,” he begged, his eyes wide with fear when he really internalized Azazel had been a mere inch away from Alexander in Jerusalem. Had Cináed not been there as well…_

_“I won’t. I made—a mistake—by coming after you, and I-I know that,” Louis vowed, his hands holding Harry’s head as little gasps escaped his lips from the consistent slide within him. “I’m reckless, and sometimes blinded—by my love for you. I couldn’t help it,” he cried, smiling when Harry’s tears fell onto his own cheekbones. “I can’t get you back myself—I get it now. There’s no way...so I’m gonna take Azazel down. I’m going to get you back, Harry. I’ll never stop until I do.”_

_“You won’t give up?” Harry sniffed, unveiling a very real insecurity he’d been having lately without knowing why._

_“Did I punch you too hard back in Jerusalem?” Louis snorted, pulling Harry’s face down to his own to lock their lips together._

_Harry smiled into the kiss and then deepened it, forgoing words to wade in the calm waters of the softest passion two creatures could share, their hips a gentle breeze swaying together in the wind, lips like pillows with the flavourful twinge of salty tears. Their hands upon each other’s skin felt like silk brushing against itself, their hearts in tune and matched in rhythm, breaths a cycle as they borrowed the air from each other’s lungs._

_It was such a jarring contrast from their opening scene to this dream, but that was how they worked. Sometimes their emotions were the end of the world—sometimes they were what saved the world. Anger was only the other side of the coin to love; it grew in the same place, and held the same amount of power—to either destroy or create. And sometimes, there was no difference there, anyway._

_“There’s something about being in this house with you. It’s like I can feel my soul healing from the otherworld,” Harry murmured, choosing to break the kiss and stare straight into Louis’ eyes while they moved together, admiring the pleasured arch of Louis’ expressive eyebrows._

_“It all started here. In this life,” Louis noted, glancing over to the piano and trying to put himself back in the days of being a human, stumbling upon the mansion and following bread crumbs of clues to unearth the slumbering beast within it. The first time he’d seen Harry—and Auron—in those paintings would never amount to how Harry had looked in person. Louis had been so hardcore in love and he hadn’t even known why. They’d had a relationship before Alexander remembered anything; Harry had loved him no matter what; it was almost pure enough to want to go back there._

_“We’re not who we used to be...but we’ll come back here. We’ll get through this—and we’ll come back home together. I promise—”_

_“No, I promise,” Louis stressed, curling Harry’s hair around his fingers as he slid his hands behind his ears. “I’m getting every single one of Azazel’s siblings together, and then I’m coming after you. We’re taking him the fuck down, and then you’re mine again,” he pledged, his words raising to a higher pitch with every syllable as their slow passion reached a slow resolution._

_“I’m always yours, Louixander. Even when I don’t know it—always yours,” Harry whispered, gasping and sighing as the feeling of his lover brought him perfect ruin, not daring to speed anything up even for a second because the pace was blissful heaven._

_“I love you,” Louis said because it always came back to that, his breath hitching as the shudders of his release fired through the synapses of his brain like a ping pong ball, clutching Harry to him and repeating how much he loved him on a loop as the Roman found his closure as well and whispered the same things straight into his ear._

_They lay ensnared in each other’s trembling arms for the rest of the dream, only breaking kisses and periods of eye contact to do the other, and only breaking silences to declare their boundless love for one another—a love that had spanned across dimensions, centuries, death, sodding amnesia, and hardships unnumbered in-between. Nothing could ever take them down, because if something had the power to, it would have done it already._

_No matter what things may try, they were still here—and they were invincible. They were eternal; and in this moment, they were flying free. Their tranquil bliss was so untouchable here in this façade of a room that when the darkness started creeping in, they didn’t even find the time to care. It didn’t matter. This was nowhere near the end. So they said goodbye, shared one last kiss until next time, and then?_

 

_~~~_

 

“Freedom,” Hadrian whispered to the ceiling of the catacombs, his brother still awake and writing in a journal beside him.

“Sorry, did you say ‘freedom’?” Auron chuckled, dropping the pen from his left hand into his lap to pet Hadrian’s boundless curls.

“Did I?” Hadrian yawned, pulling himself up to gaze down into Auron’s lap and sneak on his writings. “Poetry?” he guessed, humming lazily when Auron confirmed.

“Do you want me to read it to you? It's kind of stupid, and it doesn't exactly rhyme, but—” Auron defended, grinning when Hadrian automatically scoffed and vigorously nodded his head. “Alright,” he snorted, clearing his throat as he began to read down the page of his creation:

“ _I walk the streets all night,_

_Running with the thieves;_

_We never learn,_

_We've been here before,_

_So far away,_

_But it reminds me of home,_

_~_

_Same lips red, same eyes green,_

_Same old love, but it feels like a dream;_

_We don't know where we're going,_

_We only know where we belong,_

~

_I'm still the only one who’s been in love with me,_

_But I'm just happy getting you stuck in-between my teeth;_

_You're driving me crazy,_

_But it's none of your business,_

~ 

_I hope you can see,_

_Apologies are never gonna fix this,_

_I see it's written,_

_It's all over your face,_

~

_Tell me something I don't already know,_

_Give me something I don't already have…”_

Auron paused for a second as if thinking of the last line, looking down to Hadrian with a small smirk before speaking the last word as he jotted it down: “Free...dom.”

“Freedom?” Hadrian chuckled, plugging it into the last line before and furrowing his eyebrows. “Are you not free?” he asked, placing delicate kisses up Auron’s forearm as he closed his journal and set it aside.

“Are you?” Auron softly challenged, staring down at Hadrian until he met his eyes.

Hadrian held his brother's gaze for a long time, a barrage of locked and hidden words bouncing back and forth between their green eyes. They didn't know why...and they didn't know how...but they seemed to understand in some deep part of them that they weren't free. They just couldn't say it out loud.

“Evening, boys,” Azazel quipped as he passed along the archway of their catacomb room, fully naked with his clothes draped over his arm.

“I want to get out of Israel,” Auron called after his maker, a hand lifting Hadrian’s chin to inspect his healed throat. “My brother was hurt here and I hate this place now,” he added, booping Hadrian on the nose when he grumbled petulantly at the coddling attention.

“Fine by me. I _saw_ my brother here—that's enough to wipe this place off the map, but I'd much rather just leave. The sun is still up so we have to get into the tunnels,” Azazel said, appearing in the room fully dressed and ready to go. “You ready?”

“Hardly. Hadrian, get your clothes on, come on,” Auron said, tossing his bare twin’s garments to him and trying to find his own in the mess of their blankets. “Azazel…” he began, not sure how to start this but knowing it was important enough to bring up. “Who was that Elder immortal with your brother? I've seen him now a couple of times, and he seemed to know—”

“He's no one,” Azazel urged with his lure, kneeling beside the half-clothed Auron with a firm grip on his jaw. “Understand? You too, Hadrian. Don't worry about him,” he added, meeting the younger twin’s eyes and trapping him all the same. _This is getting difficult,_ he thought to himself, letting the dazed brothers complete their outfits so they could run off to their next safe space. _I'm doing everything right, and they're still jabbering about freedom. It's like I'm already losing them..._

 

~~~

 

“Freedom,” Louis whispered to the sand, keeping his eyes closed until he swallowed the lump of happy tears back down, then opening them to a candlelit darkness.

“Pardon?” Cináed asked gruffly, sat behind the unconscious Agnes and acting as her backboard.

“I don't know,” Louis sighed, pushing the amazing dream from his mind because yes, it had been everything he could ever want, but it was over now and he had to move on. “Is she alright?” he asked as he sat up and brushed the sandy dirt from his face.

“I appreciate everyone asking that all the time, but yes. I don't know how many times I've reassured this. She is perfectly fine. The magic isn't hurting her, nor is it hurting our baby, the baby _itself_ is wearing her out. Big difference,” the original explained, his hand smoothing up her forehead to comb her fringe into her hair.

“How was that even possible, anyway?” Louis murmured to himself, having not specifically intended to voice that out loud.

“You think I'm gonna talk about that with _you_?” Cináed snorted, his eyes shifting to Jenner who made a tiny cough for attention.

“I'd like to know,” the warlock said meekly, sitting beside Harlock who was seconds from sleep against the wall.

“Are you planning on getting pregnant?” Cináed challenged, evoking a sputtering bout of snorts from Alexander in hysterics.

“Well, no, obviously not. But I still wanna know; we haven't had time to talk about that,” Jenner muttered, not pleased with being the subject of teasing.

Cináed glared at the warlock but decided to explain—Agnes would do it a lot better, but he knew enough to get the facts right. “She focused almost all of the magic in her soul to her womb to form a protective barrier so her body wouldn't reject it. And that's about it. I used to call it the bean nest but it's a lot bigger now…” he trailed, looking back on those early days with fond nostalgia.

“That just sounds impossible. Magic doesn't listen like that,” Jenner said in awe, shocked anyone could corral magic in that manner. Magic runs rampant in humans who are born with it. Putting a vast majority of the amount you had in _one spot_ while keeping fragments for your own daily use was unheard of. He was also shocked about the concept itself—an embryonic sac of pure black magic was ludicrous. That child wasn't going to come out with a halo, that was for sure. _Also..._ to think she was only using a tiny amount of her magic and she was still so powerful...

“Hers does. Took her a while, though,” Cináed said with an edge of dark pain, reminded of what he'd forced himself to forget—of the miscarriages. She'd had four before it worked, and each time had chipped away at their hearts. But she didn't give up; her mind was set. Now here they were.

“Wouldn't that be a conscious effort?” Jenner asked, wondering how the hell she maintained something like that whilst sleeping or unconscious—for example, right now.

“It was at first…but the magic stuck when it finally figured out what it was supposed to do. I'm done talking about this, by the way,” he informed, despising how public his private life had become in the span of two or so days.

“Understood,” Jenner adhered, snuggling back into Harlock, who twitched into a semi-awake state and enclosed the warlock in his arms, promptly drifting back off. Vampires were generally dead to the world when they were asleep, but nobody had been able to rest easy ever since the whole world domination thing. It was hard enough to get sleep, and harder still to maintain it. Vampiric insomnia—who could have guessed?

“Sorry I started that,” Louis said, his eyebrows shooting up when Agnes popped into a fully sat position like nothing had happened.

“What’d I miss?” she mumbled, looking around and surveying her environment. “Did you settle things?” she asked Louis, hoping her lengthy casting had done its job to give him ample time to resolve his issues with his lover.

“Settle is an interesting term to tack to it, but yes, it was perfect. Thank you—again,” he replied, knowing he’d never ever have the words to properly thank her for everything she’d done. Without her, he’d be suicidal.

“Of course; it’s no problem,” Agnes assured, dropping her neck back to stare straight at Cináed when he made a disagreeable noise to her statement.

“What?” he asked, pushing her head back up with his hand and then lifting her to her feet with two arms hooked under hers. “It’s a bit of a problem,” he reasoned, dramatically waddling along with her as he helped her into Utul’s room where everyone was still standing by to await the next step.  

Louis tapped Jenner’s dozing form until he jumped back to reality, beckoning him to follow and then exiting the side room as the warlock diligently shook Harlock into coherence. Once all were alert and attentive in Utul’s room, and Cináed laid Agnes down atop Utul’s bed for an encouraged nap, they could now focus on the next sibling to find.

Aguta and Akna suggested Sukarno, Utul suggested Ráðspakr, Cináed really wanted to find Kazimir, and Max was positive that Hiroto would be easiest for him to talk to, so it seemed they’d have to split up. They had five of them, and four still scattered, so it was an advantage, but they didn’t know exactly where they were to go.

“Alright, alright. Teams,” Cináed said, standing in the center of the circle everyone had subconsciously made to dish out the groupings. “Aguta and Akna, take this here child with you for Sukarno. He might be in Thailand, he might be in India. Or Vietnam, Laos, Philippines, don’t forget to check Malaysia and Indonesia—could also be Australia, Nepal, New Zealand—”

“That entire section of the world, got it,” Aguta sighed, taking a boy in flannel and sticking him between him and his sister while he whispered to her all of what Cináed had just said.

“Wait, wait, I have to stay with him, I’m going too,” Erakus asserted, taking one step toward Marley before Cináed slapped a hand on his chest.

“No, I need a child of Ráðspakr with Utul to head north,” Cináed argued, pushing him toward his Arabic brother before he could complain.

“Cináed, Ráðspakr is gonna need more than one to listen to me, and I want my children with me as well. Ráð doesn’t particularly like me, I’m just the only one who can—”

“I have a whole family!” Erakus blurted, thinking of all the Sparrows (and Øvind) at Julius’s house and seeing them as an opportunity to stay with his husband. “Eight descendants of Ráðspakr. They’re in a Guardian house in England, we could use them! And Finley is there as well—a Kushan,” he said to Utul, watching the immediate interest sparkle in his eyes.

“A Kushan?” Utul breathed, eyes automatically finding his Pakistani’s to see if he knew anything about that.

“It’s true,” Zayn confirmed, trying to recall Finley’s real name that he’d only heard once—good thing he had a vampiric memory. “Sadaṣkaṇa of Peshawar.”

“That...sounds very familiar,” Utul drawled in contemplation, a smirk coming to his face because that name was oddly reminiscent of one of his directs, and now he had to know.

“So, we’ll go to England first?” Erakus asked hopefully, sharing a look with Marley; they might be a bit codependent on each other, but now was a horrible time in the world to be separated. Sue them both.

“It’s wasting time…” Cináed tried to reason, his tone hinting he’d already given up the fight.

“Not really. Not with Agnes,” Louis piped, having stood silently for most of this event because he’d had nothing to add in—he didn’t care where the fuck he went.

“Oh, fine. I can’t control you brats, anyway. You’ll just do what you want. But let the sun fall,” Cináed grumbled, once again clapping everyone away to get their last bit of rest before making for England and forming their quest teams with the Guardians.

This would certainly be an interesting few nights...Cináed really, really, _really_ didn’t want to go to Russia, but he knew he had to—he was the only one here older than Kazimir, and therefore, the only one Kaz somewhat respected.

Kazimir, on the other hand, was the third eldest (obviously), which made him almost as strong as Cináed, so the European was going to have to bring all his Elder children with him just in case; he needed a large group to protect Aggie. He didn’t want her anywhere _near_ Kazimir, and he’d kill him if he had to. He’d kill _anyone_ for Anges if he had to.

 

-~-~-~

 

“How come you never make Era brush up on his skills?” Niko panted, full of life and stood in the middle of Julius’s courtyard, facing off with Elijah who had insisted on a sparring match the moment they'd woken up.

“Because Era is stronger than you and has been on his own more than any of us,” Elijah replied, throwing up his fists and daring Niko to strike.

“Hey, he was at Harlock’s for a long time! Kaisa and I were _actually_ on our own in Canada,” Susanna defended, sat atop one of the picnic tables that circled the courtyard while Kaisa furiously nodded from the bench a foot below her.

“That's _not_ on your own,” Elijah negated, turning away from Niko to address his sisters. “Having someone with you means someone to watch your back. Before Era found Harlock, he was entirely alone—”

Niko cut his sentence off by lunging for his older brother and colliding with him in an instant tackle, wrestling with him on the ground as William guffawed from the next bench over, checking to see his wife’s reaction and discovering she was still peacefully reading her book.

“No one has been more on their own than I have,” Øvind reminded, leaning into Kyösti when his friend gave him an encouraging pat on the back.

“But look at you now,” Lotta rasped, reaching over to rub the top of Øvind’s hand across her husband.

“Thanks for—distracting me—you guys,” Elijah grunted, throwing Niko over the top of him so he could roll over and recover.

“How was that?” Niko huffed with pride, his left eyebrow stuck in the position of being smugly raised above the other.

“Cheating,” Elijah spat, hopping to his feet and wiping at his chin because his hisses had sprayed endorphins everywhere.

“I disagree. I think surprise attacks are essential to be prepared for,” William reasoned, itching to get in the ring and teach his clumsy sons a thing or two.

“You can't be prepared for surprise attacks, Papa. That's the whole point!” Elijah cried incredulously, keeping his eyes on Niko so he didn't catch him off guard again.

“No, no, no,” William shot down firmly, rising from the table so he could get some words in to his boys. “Surprise attacks may, by default, be a surprise every time. But you can train yourself to respond the _same way_ every time. Drill a reactive strike into yourself so it is more muscle memory than extending your own fangs,” he explained, watching his sons’ thoughtful faces and wondering if he'd have to get any deeper than that. Sometimes they had thick skulls.

“An automatic response to getting spooked? What if it wasn't a real threat?” Niko pointed out, his eyes darting between his father and Elijah.

“Then you might punch your friend in the face a couple of times, but that's life. Those few instances will not matter in the grand scheme, though, when it actually _is_ your enemy,” William said, of the opinion that a few mishaps would not outweigh the benefits of being prepared when it's useful.

“So should we start sneak-attacking each other?” Niko asked, dreading the constant fear he was about to live in if he knew Elijah could be plotting his conniving deeds at any time.

“And I'll help. You need to stay on your toes,” William said with a nod, glad to have the opportunity to stop his sons from being so comfortable all the time. “You never know when something sudden and unexpected will happen. It could literally be at any...second…”

 

~~~

 

Louis popped into Julius's courtyard. Then Louis was on the ground. He had anticipated feeling a little nauseous from the travel, but he couldn't have prepared for an instant fist to the face.

“Oh my _God_ , Louis! I am _so_ sorry!” a distraught Niko whined, standing over him with his hands covering his mouth. “Papa, I did it, though,” he said to William, who looked about to blow a gasket.

“Yes, son. You did do it—to _Alexander the Great!_ ” William whisper-screamed, his earlier flippancy towards sometimes punching your friends dispersing like a sugar cube in water.

“Fuck, I know,” Niko whimpered, glancing back to the fuming King and gulping in terror. “How in the fuck did you even _get_ here?”

“Are you _begging for death_?” Louis snarled, smacking the Sparrow’s hand away when it reached out to help him up. “It was a witch’s spell. Why the bloody hell did you hit me?!”

“I'm sorry, I—well, we were talking about how to respond to surprise attacks, and then you kinda just...appeared in front of me, and I panicked,” Niko blubbered, jolting from the patronizing pat on his shoulder from Erakus in passing as he strolled to greet their parents.

“Just fucking wait, Sparrow. I'll give you a surprise attack for the books,” Louis seethed, hissing at Cináed when he snorted in amusement.

“You stay away,” Øvind whimpered with an accusatory finger as the Tunnel King demon-monster crept toward him with a sickening grin.

“There, there, child. Let me look at you,” Max cooed, cornering the white-haired and youthful half-dweller against a bench and peering into his pitched pupils—gorgeous pupils that had bled their black to a much wider circumference than regular irises from his time underground. “Such pretty little eyes, my rescued critter,” he praised, leaning in and inhaling his stale neck when the blast of opening doors stole his attention.

“What the _hell_ is—” Julius began, barreling out into the courtyard and stopping short at not only the size of his unannounced company, but the sheer _dominance_ of a select few.

“Ah, Julius,” Louis greeted, running a hand over his face to ensure he wasn't bleeding and giving Niko a terrifying scowl before addressing their host. “I found Cináed, and a few others, but we need more. And we need something from you,” he said with a clipped tone, using the entitlement as Julius’s lifelong idol to his advantage.

“Anything,” Julius stated, naïvely perhaps, but they had a righteous cause, so he was in luck.

“The English Guardians,” Louis began, striding from the large group he'd collected toward the double doors that would lead him inside. “What’s left of them. Get them here.”

 

\---

 

“Prepare yourself, this isn't going to be—”

“Julius? What is that smell?” Finley asked, an excessive wafting of nerve-racking aromas pooling out from the interior of his home. He’d gotten a vague call from Julius about an hour prior and collected Annabelle and Oliver upon request, and now they were stood outside the doorway of his castle with burning noses.

“That's what I'm trying to—”

“Kushan,” Utul quipped, appearing in the doorway and pushing Caesar aside. “So it _is_ you…”

“Wha—you're my maker!” Finley cried, leaning forward and staring at his creator with wide eyes.

“Yes, hello,” Utul chuckled, on the precipice of another sentence when Liam appeared behind him and jabbed a finger at his child.

“Finley, you didn't tell me your maker is an original,” Liam chided, crossing his arms petulantly like it would have come in handy to know or something.

“Those exist?” Finley asked, dumbfounded by this information.

“Finley...you’re staring at one,” Liam deadpanned, having not made eye contact with his fellow Guardian once because he was too enamoured by Utul.

“You're an original?” Finley asked his maker, cocking his head to the side and really documenting everything that set him apart from the vampires he'd come to know. Now that he saw it, he couldn't deny—Utul was different.

“So everyone keeps telling me,” Utul sighed, unwilling to bestow his family’s correct species name because it was none of their business—‘ _vampire’_ didn't even come close, but that was what they knew.

“Well fuck, I didn't know!” Finley defended to Liam, gaze still glued to the creature he'd been turned by all those millennia ago. “He took me on _one_ dinner date and then turned me. Practically gave me a vampire guidebook and split forever,” he muttered, an old grudge resurfacing that he'd never expected to confront again.

“I don't like attachments,” Utul sniffed, leaning against the door jamb with a hand on his hip.

“Yeah, well I had _questions_!” Finley growled, recalling how lost and abandoned he'd felt after the rejection of his pleads for Utul to stay.

“I just can't believe you said ‘dinner date’,” Liam said blandly, finding it hard to imagine the old wine-and-dine with one of these fuckers. Then again...Agnes had procreated with one, and that has to top the list of weird.

“Would you get inside, please?” Julius urged impatiently, reaching through the gap of Utul and the second door and yanking Finley forward to get him moving so Annabelle and Oliver could enter too.

The unintended welcoming committee made their way back to the extravagant living room with the collected Guardians behind them, and Zayn rushed over to greet Finley, having heard the entire interaction but kindly not mentioning it because it was undoubtedly a lot for the Kushan to process.

Louis, meanwhile, for the _last hour,_ had been discreetly but nonstop staring at Max and Øvind. Because the longer they’d sat together, the closer they'd scooted; and the closer they’d scooted, the more adventurous their hands had become—and now they were cuddling.

Øvind was relaxed into the original’s side and letting out guilty sighs of contentment whenever Max’s caresses hit a specific pressure point on the Swede’s lower back, and Max himself certainly didn't shy away from brushing his tasting lips up Øvind’s neck and behind his ear.

It hadn't and doesn't make any damn sense, considering their strange and (on Øvind’s part) hostile relationship, but there they were, nuzzling each other on a couch, wracked with sexual tension. Louis and his friend group as a whole was compiled of the oddest couples in the world, and he would bet his soul on that.

But anyway…

“We're all here, Louis. What did you need?” Julius asked, trying to find extra seats for the new three and giving up when they politely declined.

“Well, we have a job to do—”

“Julius? What's that smell?”

“Astair! Ezra!” Liam greeted, jumping up to embrace his tardy vampires who had rushed in from the outside and skidded into the living room.

“Liam! How long have you been here?” Astair asked, grinning in joy to be reunited with his master.

“Just an hour. I know our humans are upstairs, I checked on them, but where's everyone else?” he asked, Johnny scuttling up to briefly hug the two as well.

“They're still out making rounds. Ezra’s leg got a little fucked up, so we thought we'd come home early—”

“Quiet,” Cináed demanded, having not spoken much since his arrival because nothing had been interesting—this, however, was interesting. “I need those two,” he said, pointing his finger between the pair of newcomers. “They're both of Kazimir.”

“Indeed they are,” Aguta mused, stroking his chin with his fingertips as he looked them up and down.

“Really? Will that help?” Louis asked, gazing at the amusingly confused vampires and then visually checking with Cináed.

“It’s like throwing a dog a bone. You can't just chuck one of our kids at us and have us _not_ distracted by it. It'll buy us time with Kazimir,” Cináed explained, unrequired to remind Alexander of the event in Jerusalem. All he and Azazel had wanted to do was protect their own.

“Time for what?”

“To get one word in,” Cináed replied, not quite looking forward to dealing with his hot-tempered little brother.

“That's comforting,” Louis sighed, so used to disadvantages at this point that someone could say an asteroid was a minute from colliding with the planet and he'd probably just nod in disinterest.

“Uh...what's going on?” Astair asked, mirrored wonderment from the three Elders who had also just arrived.

“Alright, listen,” Cináed announced in a voice booming enough to snap everyone out of their varied stages of zoning. “If I tell you that you can save the world, will you just do what I say and ask questions later?” he asked to the entire room, satisfied by the diligent nods made by all. “Good.”

Louis watched as Cináed began physically moving creatures around like he was reorganizing the decor with bodies, setting up his siblings a few metres apart (with Akna and Aguta together) and then directing vampires to them.

First, he stuck all the Sparrows (besides Erakus), Øvind, Finley, Zayn, and Niall with Utul, and backed them into a corner to set aside. Next, he put Stacey, Jet, Martin, and Tanner with Max. Then, he pushed Annabelle, Oliver, Erakus, and Marley into Aguta and Akna, and finally, wrangled his own remaining group together (that group being Agnes, Harlock, Jenner, Liam, Astair, Ezra, and of course, Louis himself).

“Utul’s group goes to Scandinavia. Max’s group goes to Japan. Aguta and Akna searches Southeast Asia and Oceania, and _we_ —” Cináed paused to say, turning around and facing his own group, “—we go to Russia.”

“Sweet. Any questions?” Louis asked the group, not necessarily planning to answer any potential inquiries.

“Yeah, what about Johnny?” Liam asked pointedly, gesturing to his lover who was still sat on the couch with Julius, Bernard, and Petra like he hadn’t been picked for any of the kickball teams.

“He’s not coming,” Cináed said bluntly, snarling when his child’s chest puffed up like one of those defensive spiky fish.

“Like _hell_ he’s not—”

“We’re not taking a regular human into Kazimir’s lair,” Cináed shot down, exasperated he’d even have to bring something that obvious to the table. “He’d eat that boy alive.”

“It’s okay, Liam,” Johnny piped, nodding his head and smiling like he wasn’t disappointed—because he totally was. “I’ll be safe here...right?” he asked to Julius, who instantly crossed a fist over his heart to Liam.

“He will be. You have my word,” the Roman general pledged to his old friend, hoping their long history would give him some credibility.

“He better be,” Liam muttered, walking over to plant a short but fierce kiss to Johnny’s puckered lips.

“How are we all getting there?” Annabelle asked, finding it difficult to wrap her mind around their methods of transportation.

“ _That_ ,” the notorious witch of the revolution began, all eyes turning to her as she rubbed her stomach and dropped a shit ton of maps onto Liam’s coffee table, “is where I come in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and NOW i will fuck off for days on end lol. be patient, we're almost there. i have one chapter left until the battle, so i will let you catch up. hgeruifheifhw. GODSSSSSSS THE BATTLE. Not good. Good for some...terrible for others... :'(


	18. Snowy Terrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favourite incident of all time is in here. When you see it, and (if) you automatically know what it is, before you ask, yes. I DID have to. Ugh, 19, then 20, then I think battle. 20 might be pretty long if I'm gonna fit all the before stuff, cuz it's not enough to chop in half when I'm done (assumedly), so idk. We will see. For now, the battle is 21. Yikes yikes yikes.

Anges popped back into Julius’s living room for the last time after dropping off Max’s group, and Cináed rushed to catch her, holding her up as she groaned in exhaustion. “This transport shit is getting ridiculous,” she slurred, silently asking to be put on the couch so she could relax.

“Just take a minute; you’ve sent everyone off and come all the way back. We don’t expect you to be a superhero,” Louis assured, standing around with his group and giving her a comforting smile.

“I don’t need _you_ to tell _her_ to take a minute. As if _you_ call the shots,” Cináed grumbled, once again picking a fight with one of his eldest children in the world because the King was too much like himself and he hated that.

“Oh, for sure. I’ll just go fuck myself, then,” Louis snapped, backing off from the room entirely and wandering outside, sitting down hard in a grey, metal folding chair and sighing to the sky. It wasn’t that Cináed’s snide remark held that much weight, but he was too frustrated to deal with it. He’d been nonstop thinking of whether this would work or not, what he would need to do, how he would get his twins back, if he’d have to kill Auron, and it was just...it was a lot.

The closer he got to some far-off vision of success, the more clueless he became. Say the originals take out Azazel...great. What then would become of the predators of the world? Even if they succeeded in taking out Azazel and hopefully Auron, they still had an entire planet under siege to take care of; but for Louis to keep his sanity, he had to think only of the Azazel bit. He knew if he had Harry with him again, the world afterward would be a cake-walk.

At least, he hoped so. Then there was the irrational fear that his dreams with Hadrian were only connections to the part of Hadrian’s consciousness that still belonged to him. It sounds stupid, but he's been thinking about the possibility that once he gets to his lover and breaks the lure, Hadrian will go off with Auron anyway...because the dreams wouldn't mean enough in real life. He knows that's illogical, and he's trying not to spend too much attention on it, but his mind does what it does.

Only five minutes into his sulking, he was interrupted—figures. Time to oneself was hard to come by in this climate.

“Uh, Louis?” Liam called from the doorway, a nervous Johnny stood a few feet behind him.

“Is it time?” Louis guessed, thinking to himself that it had fucking better be because if this dweeb had disrupted his neatly-organized thoughts for anything else—

“Yeah, it's time,” Liam confirmed, interlocking his fingers with Johnny’s and giving the most lighthearted, encouraging smile he could to the testy Alexander.

“Okay,” Louis sighed, hopping out of his chair and passing the benches of the octagonal courtyard to go back indoors. He tapped Liam on the shoulder and gave a tiny smile to Johnny, walking around the rounded corner of the hall into the grand living room, where all were sat waiting and prepared to take off.

“Come along, Liam,” Harlock said, beckoning the vampire over who looked glued to Johnny and would need a surgical removal from him.

“Alright, alright,” Liam grunted, fitting in more fast-paced kisses and neck nuzzles.

“Alright, so...Russia is fucking _huge_ ,” Louis noted, looking around at his party to see if they'd gotten any more specific than that in his absence.

“It is, but I may have narrowed it down,” Cináed said, hoping he had just as much as the next creature because he certainly didn't want to scour the whole of North Asia.

“To where? Where are we going?” Louis asked, stepping up to let Agnes touch his face and connect him to the zap-group, as Louis had started to call it.

“Ural Mountains,” Cináed informed (causing a shudder to ripple through Astair) as he pointed his finger to the tack in the map, because if Alexander had only looked down, he would have _known_ that. “Though he came long before them, Kazimir is essentially a Mansi here. I know he moved around a lot, but my intuition is telling me he went back to his worldly roots. That's what we all do when we're pissed off…”

“Why would he be pissed off?” Louis asked as his eyes slowly disconnected from Astair’s mysterious uneasiness, the troubled cadence from Cináed broadcasting he didn’t find Kazimir’s anger to be of much help. Louis understood—it would be great if they could direct that energy at Azazel, but it would likely be catastrophic if it just unleashed onto them. At the very least, a nuisance.

“That's not for your ears,” Cináed brushed aside, his private life already meddled in too deeply to go spouting new information. He’d said this plenty of times now, but it truly was the biggest of his problems.

“Okay well, that's _still huge_ …” Louis pressed in regard to the widely unhelpful location of ‘the Urals,’ accepting the dig to his entitlement because it wasn't worth the fight.

“Then we'll have to look fast, won't we?” Cináed taunted mercilessly, winning himself the instantaneous narrow of Alexander’s eyes.

“I guess we will,” Louis seethed with retrieved anger, looking over his shoulder at the stalling couple and projecting his negativity onto them. “Liam get the _fuck_ over here!”

“ _Jesus_ , al _right_!” Liam snapped with a dipping inflection, detaching himself from his prized human and joining the group to fill the last gap. “You win.”

“Enough squabbling, you children. Time to go,” Agnes said with a smile, being that perpetually likeable witch that none could scorn as she hummed the incantation to send them to the throes of uncertainty. And then?

_A fucking snowstorm._

“It’s fucking June?!” Louis snapped against the howling of the icy wind, snowflakes already forming on his dead skin as he sank into the snow upon the Russian mountain they’d zapped to the base of.

“It’s Russia. You think Russia listens to the seasons?” Harlock snorted, handing his convulsing Jenner off to Agnes so she could share with him her warm-air-spell that came in ever so conveniently handy.

“She’s got an answer for everything, doesn’t she?” Louis laughed with as he inclined his head to the witch, actually sharing a smile with Cináed for once instead of a glare.

“Where do we start?” Liam shouted, the whole group huddling together so they didn’t feel their voices needed such loud projection.

“Not sure,” Cináed replied, poking his head out of the huddle to glance in every possible direction. “The wind makes it hard to detect him. That's how I knew he'd be in the north. Kazimir hates interactions with nearly everything, and he wouldn't want to be easily found. I've no doubt we'll find him alone,” he said, trying to sniff the air yet again for his antisocial brother to no avail.

“Have you got the maps?” Louis asked to Agnes, supposing they could formulate a search party in groups with a map for reference.

Jenner nodded and pulled them from Agnes’s bag, letting her sift through the extras (since they obviously didn't have the one still tacked to Julius’s table) for one of their general location.

“Ah,” Agnes quipped, taking one from the collection and handing the stack over to Jenner to return to her bag. She then unfolded it and Cináed helped her steady the flapping corners, everyone leaning in to get a closer look. “So we're here,” she said, a tap of her finger on the spot that had been impaled with the tack. “And supposing Cináed is right about these mountains, Kazimir could be anywhere in here,” she informed, circling that same finger around what was comparatively an immense surface area.

“Groups?” Louis suggested, scratching the icicles out of his nostrils because they'd started to sting a little. Death and ice didn't match. Neither did ice and life, though—ice had a bone to pick with everyone.

“Sure, but how would we know or hear when someone has found something?” Astair reasoned, knowing even his vampiric ears wouldn't catch a simple shout from the other side of these blizzardous mountains. These terrible, _terrible_ , _awful_ , and horrifically haunted mountains.

“Give me your wrists,” Cináed said, holding his hand out for Astair’s first. The requested vampire obediently gave over his arm, and in lieu of the bite he'd initially expected, all Cináed did was scent the skin.

The original vampire made his rounds, sniffing everyone he'd grouped himself with, but when he got to Harlock, he just couldn't resist. The child held out his wrist and Cináed snatched it in his fist, yanking him in and sinking his fangs into his neck instead.

Harlock squeaked in shock and melted into Cináed, a soft pant of, “So that's what it feels like” falling from his lips.

Cináed let his child bask in the heaven for a while longer than he'd intended, waiting until he was writhing to release him, much to Harlock’s unbalanced stumbles.

When he was sure he could track everyone on these mountains, Cináed took his eyepatch and two supernatural creatures with him, put Liam with Ezra, Alexander with Astair. “Go,” he said, stalking off toward the west and leaving the other four to figure it out for themselves.

“Well, you heard the monster. Off you go,” Louis grunted, shoving Liam off further north so he and Astair could take the western side.

Liam said his farewells and trudged through the snow with his familiar travel buddy, but Louis didn't know Astair too well so he thought he'd spark up pleasant conversation. “So, uh...are you of Russian descent at all? You don't really seem like it, but the Sparrows don't have potent Finnish accents, so that tends not to mean much,” he rambled, simply wanting to fill his ears with something other than the screaming wind and his anxious thoughts.

“No, no, not at all. I'm German mostly, and Ezra’s family was Jewish, but not from Israel—he’s Danish,” Astair replied, tucking his cardigan further over his chest and crossing his arms, making adorable little sweater paws that Louis wanted to poke at.

Astair was a classic beauty: shaggy blonde hair befit of the decade, hazel eyes, noticeably fuller bottom lip than top but it worked, tight pants, short and curvaciously formed—the kind of boy that were he a human in the Roman’s vicinity, Hadrian would slip right into. _That slut._

“I was just wondering. It's funny how far down the line original genes travel. There’re probably Kazimir creations in Brazil—it's all a web,” Louis said, choosing to put his train on the tracks of relevance instead of Hadrian’s bothersome sexcapades. _‘Fucked a few humans,’_ he repeated in his head, scoffing out loud at the shamelessness Harry had admitted that with. Didn't he say he was rerouting his train?

“Funny thing is I actually spent a little time in Russia,” Astair said, stepping up onto a runway of stones to make his path easier to tread.

“Oh, did you?” Louis asked, faking his interest and faking it well.

“Yeah, from the thirties to the sixties I was here...on a vacation of sorts from Liam’s because I had a stupid falling out with Ezra. That's how I know where we are...and I'm starting to piece things together…” Astair muttered, his mind obviously fixated on something serious because his face had fallen from neutral to uneasy in a second. The same look he'd worn in Julius’s living area when Ural Mountains had been announced.

“What do you mean ‘where we are’? Piecing what together?” Louis inquired, quickening his pace to catch up to Astair as he jumped off the last rock and sank back into the snow. He wasn't faking his interest anymore.

“Ever hear of the Dyatlov Pass incident?” Astair asked, rubbing his eyes to fight the wind that had dried them out.

“‘Fraid not,” Louis said, wondering if he would have if he’d been matured around the time of its transpiring. Alas, this reincarnation, he'd been born in the fifties. Not much ado about that. “I love a good _incident_ , though…”

“January 27th, 1959,” Astair began, adopting a probably unintentional but noticeable edge of spooky mystery to his tone. “Ten ski hikers set out on a quest to Mount Otorten—Otorten meaning ‘Don't Go There’ in Mansi—from Vizhai. One turned back due to illness, and lucky that he did, because by February 2nd, the remaining nine were all dead.”

“How did they die?” Louis asked, finding himself curious to hear the tale. Better than walking in silence.

“No one knows. Except maybe the force that killed them. Instead of venturing toward Otorten, a disorienting storm landed them accidentally on Kholat Syakhl—‘Mountain of the Dead’—and they set up camp on the mountain’s slope for the night,” Astair continued, beginning to feel overwhelmingly tormented about being in the same area.

“Sounding more and more like hypothermia to me,” Louis sniffed, confused as to how _any_ human could withstand these conditions.

“Just wait, it gets much worse,” Astair warned, shivering but not from the temperature.

“Go on…” Louis urged, subtly glancing at Astair’s face as they walked to judge how uncomfortable he was.

“Something happened that night...and they ran for their lives. Their tent was ripped open from the _inside_ ; some barefoot, some in only their undergarments; the only footprints to be found were their own—and no avalanche could have made them run, because no avalanche came through. Something scared them, though...and they scattered like rats. Ran five at least hundred metres away—”

“Five hundred? In these conditions? _Barefoo_? And you mean to tell me it _wasn't_ hypothermia?” Louis challenged, his logical mind at war with itself because it was obvious this story had more depth to it than that but it seemed so self-explanatory.

“Well, maybe. That would have been the general consensus, yes. Until the search parties found them; found out what had been _done_ to them,” Astair mused, putting himself in the frantic minds of the nine students and trying to theorize what they’d been running from.

“Enough with the suspense?” Louis griped, more enamoured with this story than he'd been with Auron’s (then) revolutionary “This is how I entered your dream” story.

“One had a crushed skull; two had insane internal damages—I mean, victims of a _colossal_ pressurized force that shattered their ribs and chest bones in a way that would only make sense if they'd been hit by a train, and _no_ external wounds on the skin. It's as though they exploded from the inside. A girl was missing her eyes, and her tongue, a whole lip gone, but no signs of any altercations. Some had their skin, and some did not. Still, the only footprints were theirs. Fatal injuries...and no proof. That is the Dyatlov Pass incident,” Astair finished, checking with Alexander to gauge his reaction.

“Shattered bones and no tissue damage on the skin,” Louis hummed, flipping through the list of causes as though he had a theory-folder before him. He had nothing. “And when you said you were starting to piece things together...do you mean to say you reckon Kazimir is behind this?” he asked, well aware that even an original vampire wouldn't be able to pull off something so inexplicable. Besides, nine hikers would be far too trivial for an ancient such as Kazimir.

“This is his territory,” Astair reasoned with a shrug, seeing too much coincidence to write it off completely. “Do you think he had _nothing_ to do with it? And besides—” he added before Louis could respond to the former, “—Kholat Syakhl and Otorten were given their disconcerting titles not from this event, but one long before. In which _nine_ Mansi also perished in these very same parts; found in similarly perplexing conditions, if I'm to understand,” he said, finally laying the final layer of the Dyatlov cake to the pensive King.

“A pattern...somehow I doubt Kazimir indulges in sentiment. Plus, with everything described, this sounds like warlocks to me. Deranged and disturbed, perhaps, but warlocks nevertheless. Anything else would leave tracks,” Louis said, though his confidence on that was growing thin. There could be things dwelling on Earth he just wasn't aware of. Originals (though he'd been unknowingly turned by one) and ‘The Lost’ had been two...there could be a lot more.

“You don't think Agnes and Jenner, but Agnes _especially_ wouldn't have picked up on killer warlocks nearby? Magic of that gravity, if it was indeed magic, seems as though it would leave a noticeable stain behind…” Astair reasoned; he’d never before met any magical creatures before Jenner, but he'd known of their existence, and getting to know one now proved his point further: they're scarily in tune with nature.

“Yeah, I don't know,” Louis muttered, that same thought having entered his contemplative mind. “It seems brainless to me that these hikers would even _think_ to venture to a place called ‘Don't Go There’...that warning is substantially blunt. You don't ignore shit like that—there are some places you just...don't go. Which peak is this Kholat Syakhl anyway?” he asked in massive contradiction to his words, his eyes brimming over the tops of the Ural range in search of the infamous Mountain of the Dead.

“I'm not too positive, but I _think_ —” Astair drawled, his finger pointing them further ahead to a slope dressed in the same pearl white of their environment, “I think it might be that one,” he said, gaze glancing to the forest east of it and matching the distance up with the alleged escape route of the young and misfortunate hikers.

“Well, Astair. Master of campfire stories,” Louis praised with playful sarcasm, “if it _was_ Kazimir, and he _is_ a sentimental serial killer of nine, then he's bound to be there, isn't he?” he laughed, hating the chilling knowledge that like Cináed, Kazimir could probably hear him right now, and might not be too pleased with being made a mockery.

“You seem quite confident,” Astair noted, lacking any fraction of the word himself.

“I'm not, I'm petrified. All the more reason,” Louis said, taking Astair’s cold hand in his and sprinting off the through the snow at full speed, the vampire at his side without a choice but to follow. “A little curiosity never hurt anyone,” he shouted because it seemed like he needed to, even though Astair’s superior ears would pick his voice out of the wind.

“Except the cat,” Astair replied, his grin laced with nerves though it showcased honest amusement. “It killed the cat.”

“Are we cats?” Louis teased, finally letting go of Astair’s hand now that he knew the German would keep pace.

“We have claws and we hiss,” Astair deadpanned, dropping his fangs down and performing that very trait. “What more proof could you need?”

Louis’ laughter at that was bubbly and natural, the sound of it unable to fit in with all the serious events happening around them, but it was pure. He's glad he was paired with Astair, after all—he hadn't given it much of a thought before, but this vampire had made him _laugh_ at a time like this. He wouldn't forget that.

 

~~~

 

“P-proszę, Bastion.”

“Please _what_ , you nervous wreck?” Auron taunted to the human at his disposal, having stopped in the hallway of the Pałac Prezydencki (Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland) because a kept human had thrown herself at him.

He'd been on his way to make a rather important phone call, but he figured coming alive was a good enough reason to stall—he wanted her to beg, though.

“Gryźć,” she pleaded, baring her neck as she clung to the sides of Auron’s white button-down.

Auron didn't necessarily understand that word, having not studied Polish as thoroughly as other languages, but the _context_ was stupidly obvious, and to give it a try, she'd probably said “bite.”

“Proszę—”

“I got it, I got it,” he muttered, pressing her up against the closest wall and sniffing up her breasts en route to her throat. Women didn't entice him sexually, but they had a habit of smelling _really_ good, both in skin and in blood, so fraternizing with them was never a bad time.

He gripped her thigh and hiked it up beside his hip, his other arm curling around the small of her back as he gifted her his fangs, piercing her mostly unmarked neck and making her squirm in joy.

“Bastion,” she sniveled, holding his head to her neck and using another hand on his shoulder to jump up and wrap her other leg around his back.

Auron hummed in annoyed acceptance and took her full weight, arms snaking around her pelvis to hold her up against the wall while he drank. Eventually, he was alive and energized enough to be done with her, and he let her go, knowing if he didn't soon, he'd kill her. Not that he cared, but that particular death would be beyond unnecessary.

The moment he tried to leave, two desperate hands gripped his wrist, and he huffed impatiently, turning back to her and pulling her into his chest. “Go to sleep,” he urged with his lure, smoothing a palm down her forehead to close her eyes and make it easier. “Sleep.”

She keeled backward in his arms and he let her fall, breaking the ground collision by a last clasp to her hand and then letting her crash down two inches. _I don't know what's worse,_ he thought as he was finally left alone, hurrying his pace to the room he'd been originally headed to. _Creepy zombie humans, or the usual puppy dog humans._

He reached the grandeur mahogany door of the Polish President’s office and swung it open, waltzing to the main desk and plucking the phone from the base, calling France first so _they_ could deal with the teleconferencing connections. Hadrian then slipped into the room and Auron gave him a smile, holding up a finger that said “wait” as France picked up.

“Ah, Bastion. Bonjour,” the Elder quipped, taking a moment to ask what language their calls should be in.

Auron responded, in English, that it should be in English because they couldn't just expect everyone else to speak French or Italian, and the vampire on the other line agreed, asking him to hold as he configured how to get the world in touch.

“Auree,” Hadrian whispered while he had the time, skipping up to the desk and shoving all the Polish government paperwork off to place himself atop it instead.

“What do you want, Hayway? I'm kinda busy,” Auron said, tossing a pen at his brother when he started rolling around like a sultry go-go dancer. “Would you— _hi,_ China,” he suddenly said into the phone, piercing Hadrian with a look that silently told him he’d better stop.

Hadrian sighed in exasperation and settled onto his back, grabbing a staple remover from the corner of the desk and idly tossing it above him and catching it, listening in on Auron’s conversations about the Guardians, the armies, the region control, the livestock, the lure territories, their concerning decrease in numbers, blahblahblah…

It was just the kind of yabbering that had driven him insane as a child, and though his ears couldn't help but overhear, he tried hard to block it. Instead of suffer, he popped up to sitting position and pushed off his hands to land on the floor, walking his knees over to Auron’s swivel chair and spinning it around while he roughly grabbed his twin by the hips.

“What the— _Hadrian_ ,” Auron whisper-shouted, his eyes darting between the phone and his brother as _crucial_ details were being debated on the international conference call. “ _Stop it,”_ he hissed, furrowing his eyebrows at Hadrian’s defiant face.

The second he wondered what the fuck this was about, his twin let him know, striking out with fangs drawn and digging them into the outside of his upper thigh, straight through his slacks. “ _Ngh!”_ he choked in ecstasy, tuning back into the call as he slapped Hadrian across the head. “Yes, Zhao, I think so too. But we can't—let them have—Russia. We need to send...a scary amount of—of our forces to—Russia, so the—the Guardians don't—they don't—don't—one moment please,” he panted, dropping the phone down on the desk to address the _problem at his lap._

“Hadrian, you've gotta stop,” he warned breathlessly, his body losing control from the brutality Hadrian had bitten and hissed with. It was too much. Hadrian merely twisted around to glare up at him like _he_ was obstructing justice, and hugged him tighter around the hips, so Auron was left with no logical choice but to accept the spontaneous feeding. He gave a miffed grunt as his eyes rolled back in his head and methodically pet Hadrian’s hair, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear and pinching the bridge of his nose while he tried to listen to the voices coming through the line.

“I'm back,” he said with a noticeable waver, his spine arching off the back of his chair as he bit his index knuckle to keep quiet. “Did you say Jerusalem?” he moaned, cursing his brother for putting him in this embarrassing position.

“Yes, what happened in Jerusalem? We got word from Michael that you had changed and we can't trust you,” Annie laughed with her strong London accent, the lack of laughter from everyone else on the call proving she was the only one who found it funny.

“Uh...Michael. Oh, _Michael_ ,” Auron drawled, a sour expression crossing his face of bliss. “You mean the right-hand that betrayed me by attacking me with intent to kill?” he snorted, dropping the phone back down (with a hand wound tight around the mouthpiece) and gasping like an asthmatic.

“Hadrian, stop. Get off me. _Now_. You're gonna make me come,” he warned, shivering as he glared down at Hadrian and viciously hissed at him.

Hadrian didn't even open his eyes, instead giving a bland shrug of his shoulders that plainly stated, “I don't give a shit” and Auron groaned in defeat. He decided in that moment he'd let it happen to spite his brother, grumbling petulantly the entire time and then snatching the phone once he’d floated back down to Earth. “Sorry. You can trust me,” he muttered to his global Elders, savagely punching Hadrian in the face the second he resurfaced from his thigh. _What a nuisance._

Hadrian accepted the terms for his high’s consequences as he lay on the cold floor of the office, staring up at the coffered ceilings and worshiping every breath he had to take—this spark of life was unparalleled. He could leap to Mars from here if he wanted to; carry the world on his back like Atlas; he could do anything.

 _Hadrian, wouldn't someone be ranting about how disgustingly Roman you are right about now?_ his own minded taunted him, making a look of confusion privately mold to his face.

 _What?_ he asked back, wondering how his own thoughts could seem so apart from him.

_Wouldn't someone heavily berate you on what was and wasn't acceptable to participate in, even for a Roman vixen with no class?_

_That vampire in Jerusalem?_ he guessed because the term ‘vixen’ was mighty familiar, quickly realizing it was without a doubt said creature. He'd said some pretty outrageous things that day…

Wait, hang on. He shouldn't actually remember that vampire. Because Azazel had...had put him in a _lure_ to forget him. Hadrian could hardly believe that irrefutable truth, but the words of his maker rang clear as church bells: _“He's no one….Understand? You too, Hadrian. Don't worry about him.”_

Why? Why had Azazel...put him under a lure? And that vampire had told him that too. That vampire had also carried Hadrian’s blood in his veins…

“Auron, you're right!” he snapped as he stood to his feet, his eyes wide as Auron nearly broke the phone in annoyance to be interrupted again. “Our lives; they're _not_ right. Auron, Azazel he...he…”

“Hello, boys,” Azazel said as he waltzed into the room, catching Hadrian’s gaze and spreading his lure out to capture both twins one by one.

 _Shit, Hadrian. Don't lose it...don't...you can't…what? What was I…_ “Hey, Zaza!”

 

~~~

 

“This isn’t promising,” Louis groaned, eyes fixed on a little aperture on the south side of Kholat Syakhl.

“Definitely not ideal,” Astair agreed, already taking little baby steps backward because the powerful stench billowing out of that rocky opening (that a wall of snow blocking wouldn’t protect them from) spoke for itself. Kazimir was here.

“We need to get—” Before Louis could say ‘Cináed,’ his Ugric brother busted through the snowpack like a plow, so Louis screamed it instead: “ _CINÁED_!”

Kazimir hissed in rage and darted out to quite literally tear Louis into pieces, but within a millimetre of getting torn, Louis was suddenly behind his maker’s back. Cináed had arrived in the span of a blink (these damn originals and their outrageous speed), and was gripping Kazimir’s wrists as they snarled at each other in Ualarhi, and Louis could do nothing but watch the scene unfold.

Astair was practically crying beside him, so Louis put the young vampire behind him in turn, at the very least making a wall between him and the scary original, but it didn’t seem as though he was needed—Cináed was without a doubt holding his own.

In all the madness, Louis drank in Kazimir’s features, peeking with an obtuse lean to see around his broad creator. Kazimir was half the width of Cináed, but he was easily a foot taller; long dread-like hair in differing shades of black and silver hung down to his chest (as did his zebra beard), and that hair framed a sharp and slim face with grey eyes that could probably kill prey with the lock of a gaze.

He was dressed in a wolfskin cloak with other hide garments that kept him in the time period of whenever he’d arrived to this world, and his voice was the deepest Louis thinks he’d ever heard. If Hadrian, Auron, and Azazel were deep speakers, Kazimir made them sound like dog whistles—Louis could feel Kazimir’s timbre in the snow beneath his feet.

 _I hope the other groups are having an easier time than this_ , he thought, spending a second of his time to fret over his family who were currently in random locations in the world on this same kind of mission, unknown outcomes blocking their clear future. He shared a look over his shoulder at Astair, who was quaking with nerves so strong they had a scent, and he would have reached out to touch him...

But then they were both standing in front of Agnes.

“What in the f—”

“Not now, Louis,” Agnes tutted, closing her eyes and swirling her arms around stereotypically to cast some sort of spell. It didn't look like anything was happening, per se, but Jenner’s constant ducking from invisible trajectories proved _something_ was being wielded. And then Liam and Ezra were with them too.

“What’s happening?” Liam asked, stumbling to the side as he searched Harlock’s close face for answers.

“Okay, Cináed told me that if this kind of thing happened to you four, to bring you all to me. But Ezra and Astair, you two need to go back. You were there, right?” she asked Astair, who nodded robotically and stood awkwardly beside the equally troubled Ezra. “Do you know how to find your way back?”

“Uh,” Astair said, looking around him to find out where they even were. “Yeah, that way,” he said, pointing behind him, still picking up traces of Kazimir’s scary scent.

“Take him and go. You're both assets in this situation, and Cináed won't let anything happen to you, I promise,” she said, giving them little nudges to get them moving.

“I don't know, he seemed to be struggling—”

“Cináed’s older. _Trust_ me, he's fine. That makes a huge difference for that family. _Go!_ ” she urged, snapping her invisible magic like a whip and actually seeming to affect them. The two ran off in a flurry and Agnes swayed on her feet (her main deeds done), immediately caught by a frantic Harlock and Liam, and gladly using them for support.

“So we just... _wait_?” Louis asked, inflection making it obvious that he saw that as an unforgivable crime. He could admit they wouldn't be able to tailor any outcome by their own efforts, but still. Just waiting? Is that really all they’re worth?

“Let Cináed work, Louis. He knows what he's doing—we'd only be in his way,” Agnes asserted, sounding quite out of breath as she did so.

“Alright,” Louis accepted with no other option, striding up to Agnes leaned against Harlock and Liam and holding his arms out. “Here, come here,” he said, scooping her into the cradle of his arms so she didn't have to stand.

“Oh thanks, love,” Agnes giggled, draping her top arm around Louis’ shoulders while he held her stomach with the other. “Cináed might smack you, though,” she warned, letting herself relax and her head drop sideways against the King’s chest.

“You let me worry about that. This is for the greater good,” Louis muttered, almost daring Cináed to have a problem with him looking out for his heavily pregnant and exhausted lover. _You WOULD throw a fit,_ he jabbed in his head, hating how very similar in attitude he was to his maker. _Just what I need...to be a clone of my deplorably moody original._

 

\---

 

It seemed they waited hours, but that was probably just the stress of their loitering context. Weight was nervously shifted from foot to foot, Harlock and Louis with armfuls of Jenner and Agnes respectively, and Liam chewing on a lock of his half-tied hair.

Just as Agnes was about to fully doze off, Louis’ hands flinched and the witch hummed in curiosity, all heads turning when Cináed materialized before them.

“Is everything okay?” Louis asked, his rapid tension dissipating now that the incoming presence was confirmed to be Cináed.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” Cináed barked when his eyes landed on Alexander. “That’s mine. You don’t touch what’s mine. Give her to me,” he sneered, hooking his own arms under Agnes’s back and retrieving her from his impetuous child.

“Yeah, I'm just the worst, aren't I?” Louis sassed, changing the subject under Cináed’s petrifying glare because he enjoyed all his limbs. “What happened? Is it safe?”

“Safe as it’s gonna be. Follow me,” he said, rushing off with Agnes back to Kholat Syakhl and keeping his run as leveled as possible so he wasn't jostling his little one.

Louis shoved his hands in his pockets and chased after him, bumping shoulders with Liam to buck him up because he looked overly worried for his Astair and Ezra. They followed the snowy trail to the morbid mountain and slowed their pace when they reached its discomforting stature, and then Cináed led the way down into the dark chasm of its hidden underside.

The group said nothing as Cináed brought them deeper into the passage; the original jutted his head toward a torch that Agnes took to light the way, and he told her ‘thank you,’ but that was the only utterance made.

Everyone else was too nervous to speak—Louis because he knew what they were approaching, the rest because they sensed the danger. Intuitive, they were...Kazimir was an animal. He wasn't the ever-incorrigible Max or Aguta, that was for sure. He was more like Azazel, but less egotistical—Azazel would taunt and tower over you with a smile as he killed you so you knew how fucked you were; Kazimir, you wouldn't even see. You'd just die.

Cináed turned a sharp corner and there he was: the third brother in line. He was sat in a corner atop a measly blanket, holding a freshly-bitten Astair and Ezra under his arms as they slept on his chest, and he looked so different without all the hissing.

His ‘room’ if that was an accurate word, was decorated with the most basic and minimalistic items one could imagine, and that automatic imagination was even cut in half because no eating utensils or firewood was required for this creature to thrive. What Louis did see was a few blankets, plenty of blade-based weapons, a handful of outfits for when Kazi felt ‘daring,’ and some bones. _Bones_. Bones of what, Louis wasn’t sure. They weren’t whole skeletons or skulls, just bones… _I suppose it makes sense._

“May I introduce Kazimir,” Cináed said blandly, giving his brother his back because he still had Agnes in his arms and didn’t feel all that great about her being anywhere near the kind-of-Mansi asshole relative of his. “Snake under the Mountain.”

“... _Hi_?” Louis guessed unsurely; Cináed had introduced Kazimir pointedly to _him_ , and he didn’t know what the fuck he was supposed to say—‘ _Nice death-mountain hideout?_ ’ “It is an honour, O’ Great...Serpent?” he squeaked, frantically looking to Cináed for help because he was already getting wiped out from the rip currents in Kazimir’s blank stare. Cináed shook his head in annoyance, and Louis was really going to yell at him for this later...this falter was not his fault.

“That one is odd,” Kazimir said in that deep voice Louis had heard earlier (albeit much calmer now). The Ugric twinge in Kazimir’s accent reminded Louis of drinking a warm cup of tea on a cold night, and were he a human right now with those resources, that is precisely what would be in the works.

“He is Aléxandros,” Cináed informed with an air regret, sounding as though he wished he didn’t have to admit ‘ _this_ ’ was his most famed child in history.

“ _Vosanor? Eloqin shi_ _nithri-ha_ ,” Kazimir snorted presumably in their special language, sizing the claimed King up and scrutinizing his every inch, skeptical no doubt of Alexander’s capabilities and skill in battle. Louis understood—a conquerer of the world was a far cry from the sassy, indignant, and crass version of himself he was now. Truthfully, he’d always been this way, but history had painted him as a fierce and serious warrior of man... _fierce_ , yes, but serious? Wrong King.

“Is that good or bad?” Louis whispered to Cináed regarding Kazimir’s foreign-language quip; his mind was set on negative and he curious how badly he’d just been insulted.

“Neutral,” Cináed muttered back, not having the heart to tell his child what his brother had really spat.

“Mmhm,” Louis hummed skeptically with his sassiest look thrown to his _lying_ maker, tuning to Kazimir when he noticed him carefully laying his descendants down to leave his corner area and...yup. Approach him. _By all the Gods—_

“You want to kill Azazel?” Kazimir challenged, towering over Louis’ five-foot-five frame and breathing down onto his nervous face.  

That hadn’t exactly been the question Louis had expected from Kazimir, but he certainly had a readied answer for it: “Yes.”

“You think you could?” Kazimir asked on the verge of laughter, looking like he wished he could throw Alexander at his eldest brother and watch the resulting dissonance from top-tier box seats.

“I don’t think I could. In fact I _know_ I couldn’t,” Louis admitted, not wanting to seem any more of the brat he’d already presented himself as. He knew what he could and couldn’t do, and he would never claim that killing Azazel was one of the ‘could’s. “But I want him dead,” he asserted, showing his verdict in his face and letting the third in line know how very serious he was about this. “I _need_ him dead.”

“How much?” Kazimir pressed, his eyes narrowing as he awaited the annoying King to open up about his dark and violent desires.

“With every vessel in my entire heart,” Louis growled, trying to make himself taller and failing miserably—he could do it with his voice, though. “He stole something from me and I need it back. I will die if I don’t get it, and I will happily die for the cause so long as I free it,” he explained, nothing but pure honesty in that explanation. He didn’t want to die, but a life without Hadrian was basically the same thing, and if he had to die to free his Roman from his maker’s clutches, then he’d do that, too.

“Free it? I’m assuming Azazel stole some _one_?” Kazimir emphasized, finding it hard to believe this passion was borne of a material possession.

“Yes,” Louis stated, his body immobile and rigid as he resisted the urge to dive into his story of lost love.

“And you’re asking me to care for this stolen creature?” Kazimir asked, momentarily glancing behind him as his children woke out of their stupor and groggily sat themselves up. Just from one feeding, he was already so in tune to them that they felt like his possessions—they kind of _were_ , anyway, with the whole lineage thing.

“No,” Louis huffed, having had enough of these originals presumptuously accusing him of being selfish. “I’m really not. I’m asking you to help your family take down Azazel—knock him off his fucking high horse—and take back your dignity,” he snapped, ignoring his inner common sense’s screams of ‘shut up while you’re ahead.’ “Because if you refuse, I see nothing before me but a coward incapable of beating his older brother. I see nothing but a—”

“I _asked_ you if you expected me to care. I did _not_ invite you to insult me,” Kazimir interrupted quite angrily, taking steps forward that made Aléxandros shuffle backward in self-preservation.

“So…” Louis drawled, only wanting to know what the original’s consensus would be. He could deal with consequences of his acrimony later.

“I’m saying your creature’s condition is no concern of mine. I’m not going to save it, even if I have a chance to—that’s on you,” Kazimir said, needing the King to know exactly where his focuses and cares were, and that none included his frivolous issues.

“Look, I’m not asking for anything but to have Azazel distracted—even for a moment,” Louis assured, tired of repeating the same thing to this band of monsters. “I’ll handle my own business during that time.”

“I sincerely hope you do,” Kazimir replied, though it was clear he did not give one single fuck about it.

“Will you come?” Cináed asked, still asking over his shoulder with Agnes faced the other way.

“You have everyone?” Kazimir asked, pulling his children up by a grasp of hands and pushing them into the standing group.

“We have Akna and Aguta, who are getting Sukarno; Utul, who is getting Ráðspakr; the other one getting Hiroto, then there's us. And here you are,” Cináed listed, proving just how big of a movement this had become.

“What _is_ the other one’s name?” Kazimir questioned, both originals adopting thoughtful expressions that almost looked painful, as though they were violently ransacking the crevices of their memory.

“I don't know,” Cináed confessed after coming up short again, pausing because he didn’t know what else to say.

“We goin’ back, or what?” Louis piped, his two superiors glancing over at him in differing expressions of annoyance and amusement.

“Are we?” Cináed inquired once more, all eyes fixed on Kazimir as he silently talked himself in and out of it.

“I’ve been bored. I’ll come. Should be fun,” Kazimir snorted, prepared to make whatever journey was ahead until one of his children darted in front of him and held up the proceedings.

“Wait! Kazimir, my lord! Did you have anything to do with the Dyatlov Pass incident?” Astair begged, close to falling to his knees as he waited anxiously for the answer.

“Pardon?” Kazimir barked, looking to his brother to see if he may know what this vampire was talking about.

“For the love of the _Gods_ , do you really have to ask that at a time like this?” Louis blurted, Ezra being the only other one out of the lot who knew what Dyatlov Pass represented.

“Did you kill nine Mansi on Otorten, and then kill nine hikers in 1959 on this one, Kholat Syakhl?” Ezra timidly asked for his ex-boyfriend, knowing Astair didn’t have the collective courage to eloquently come back from his interruption.

“I remember that mess…” Kazimir noted, the whole fiasco having transpired not too long ago. There had been helicopters, police investigations, Russian government excursions, and all he’d wanted was peace and quiet. “No, it wasn’t me. It was...I can’t tell you that.”

The raised shoulders of Astair, Ezra, and Louis depleted like someone had stuck a nail in a tire, but Kazimir’s vague statement had the King searching for more. “What do you mean you can’t say? Surely there’s some logical explanation…” he pressed, unprepared to hear (much less accept) any other response but one of simplicity.

“There are things in these mountains,” Kazimir informed with a shrug, not seeing a point to bring them up. “Things I don’t speak of.”

“Oh, that's nice,” Louis deadpanned, now desperate to leave before they all exploded from the inside and lost their tongues. “Can we go?”

“I’m ready to take us back, love,” Agnes chimed with the map in her hand, her monster of a lover glancing down to her and nodding his wavy-haired head.

“Alright. Are you connected to everyone?” Cináed asked, waiting for a confirmation and then taking her to the only one she definitely wasn’t.

Agnes reached her hand out to touch Kazimir’s face when she was close enough, and the original’s eyes couldn’t not flick down to her stomach. He looked back to his brother and gave him a knowing smile, and Louis only looked away for a second...but when he looked back, they were at Julius’s.

“Yikes!” Julius squeaked in fright, grabbing his chest and stilling his unbalanced hops. He can't be blamed—one second he was organizing his living room; the next, completely surrounded by Alexander’s group.

“A Roman general saying ‘yikes,’” Louis chuckled, walking over to take a relaxing lounge on a couch and watch the events play out before him.

“An honour, Kazimir,” Julius shaped up to say, giving the original a salute and bow of respect.

“I can't say the same,” Kazimir muttered, dragging Astair and Ezra to a loveseat to coddle.

“What happens if you zap exactly where a person is standing?” Jenner asked offhandedly, scratching his cheek as Harlock snaked his arms around his hips.

“They don't explode if that's what you're asking. I can move them,” Agnes said, allowing Cináed to carry her to the same couch as Alexander, putting himself between them.

“I'm assuming we're the first group back,” Liam guessed, not sensing any other of his vampire friends than the ones in this room and his own upstairs.

“Yeah,” Julius confirmed, walking to his fridge to prepare glasses of blood to anyone that wanted one. “Are you to wait here for their arrival?” he asked, having cleaned up rooms for their stay regardless.

“That was the plan,” Louis said, his words followed by a frantic bound down the stairs.

“ _Liam_!” Johnny squealed, skidding around the corner and launching himself through the air at his ecstatic lover.

“Johnny, my fluff ball!” Liam greeted, catching his airborne human and squishing his face into his meticulously-maintained afro.

The pair exchanged more lovesick-cured words of relief, and Louis tuned them out, turning instead to Agnes and leaning forward to catch her gaze around his maker. “Psst,” he whispered to her, maintaining the interaction even through Cináed’s warning look.

“Hm?” Agnes hummed, trying to lean forward as well but her stomach prevented her from getting very far. Cináed huffed and sank back into the couch, giving the two full views of each other so neither had to strain.

“Do you think...do you think you could do it again?” Louis asked, not needing to extrapolate on that because ‘the dream spell’ was crowding the space between the lines.

“She’s not your magician,” Cináed reminded, close to unleashing a lecture regarding Louis constantly using her for his own selfish benefit when she beat him to a reply.

“I’d be glad to,” Agnes assured, giving her lover a challenging stare and smirking when he merely slammed his head back onto the couch in defeat.

“Thank you. I want to wait at least an hour after sunrise if that’s alright. I’m not sure what timezone Hadrian is in now…” Louis rambled, cursed by the paradox that he needed to know what zone Hadrian was in to catch him after sunrise, but needing the dream itself to find that out.

“An hour is a safe estimate,” Agnes agreed, letting herself relax before she’d tackle that spell in a few hours time. “Until then,” she quipped, falling asleep almost directly after she’d uttered the words.

 _Zeus, what am I going to do until sunrise?_ Louis groaned in his head, looking around at the lazy forms of his company and realizing he would most certainly be on his own. Everyone was preoccupied with someone, romantically or otherwise, and even though Louis always feels like a whiny brat for thinking so, he can't help reminding himself he's never felt so alone.

The trio of doom was off causing turmoil somewhere, and Louis, who usually meant everything, meant _nothing_ to the twins of that trio. He didn't exist. Not even to his own lover.

In the real world, Hadrian and himself were nothing but ghosts to each other. Two ghosts swimming in a glass half-empty. Though who is he kidding? That glass is empty of everything—it's been shattered on the floor for weeks. You can't even begin to fill something so broken.

He missed the days in the past when the worst of their problems was finding a hotel to stay in before sunrise broke the horizon—when they rode in cramped style with their family to New York just to evade Auron’s obsessive advances. New York: the state they’d ravaged the streets of before the catastrophe was dealt by the predators.

The world ended in New York, and Louis has traveled all over the fucking place trying to put it back together. He wondered where he'd be when they saved it; so long as it wasn't Rome or Greece, he’d be fine.

His life really doesn't need any more poetry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dyatlov lmao. If you DON'T know what that is, go research it. Biggest mystery of like all time. If I could bird's-eye view any event, it would be that one. I might throw up a lot, but I wanna know what happened so bad. None of it makes any fucking sense. Oh man. I love Kazimir, sigh. I love all of them. Every single character. I love everything.  
> That's what makes all of this so hard. See you next time.


	19. Nol Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. Still on 20 *nervous cackle* I'm stalling so much, and I'm sorry. I almost don't want to write this gawdamn battle, but I will. It must be done lmao. I'm just procrastinating on it. I wanted you to catch up to me, and we're both getting punished for it aha. I'll upload 20 the moment I'm done with it. *deep breath* we're gonna make it.

_“Louis...oi, Louis,” a sweet, jarringly familiar voice said, pulling him out of his odd sleep and making him crack an eye open._

_Louis blinked a few times and zoomed in on the chest of which he was lying on, smiling when he confirmed it to be Harry’s and closing his eyes again. Wait..._

_“Louixander.”_

_“Fuck, that's right!” Louis blurted, sitting himself up and staring down at his lightly amused love. “This isn't normal,” he remembered, glancing around to find they were once again located in the music room of the Fortwright mansion. “Harry, I...I don’t know where all your music is. I packed my sword, your music, clothes, and other shit when we left here. We've gone too many places, I don't remember where it all is.”_

_“That's alright, love. Maybe someday we'll find whose house it's cluttering, but even if we don't, I can write more...that you'll inevitably transform into art,” Harry chuckled, sitting up and touching a palm to Louis’ face, just to feel him under his skin. “I missed you again without knowing why…”_

_Louis smiled and held Harry’s hand against him where it already was, closing his eyes and sighing in fulfillment. “I don't want to make this the battle of pains, but I've been missing you all along and I do know why,” he said, knowing he'd regret it if Harry got defensive but he couldn't filter his own hurt_ — _existing sucked._

_“You're not missing out on some great opportunity,” Harry scoffed, removing his hand from in-between Louis’ palm and cheek and wrapping both arms around slightly parted knees he'd pulled into his chest. “I'm a completely different beast out there.”_

_“Not too different,” Louis negated, quickly explaining when Harry’s face fell. “I mean, you are how you would be if I'd never found you. If Antinous and Damianos had never shown you what it is to care for someone. Angry, arrogant, vain, selfish, deplorable, nauseatingly misguided, struck with a God complex so fat you could probably_ —”

_“Okay, I get it,” Harry groaned, hiding his face and shaking his head._

_“Look, all I'm trying to say is you're_ —”

_“There's no excuse, Louis,” Harry interrupted, quickly continuing before his lover would take over again. “But if anything, it shows how important my loves were to me. How much they shaped who I am, and what I stand for. You more than anyone,” he added, his eyes warm and kind as they peered into Louis’._

_“It's not a competition, babes,” Louis chided, climbing into Harry’s lap and tucking both sides of his hair behind his ears to grab onto his face._

_“No, it’s really not,” Harry snorted in full agreement, giving his lover an Eskimo kiss and wrapping his arms around his hips. “You more than anyone.”_

_Louis smiled to be so highly regarded and he melted into Harry’s chest, letting the Roman’s hands wandering around his back be the only thing in the entire cosmos. “I miss this so much…all the time.”_  

_“What have you been up to, Lou? I wanna hear everything; we’re so far apart, in so many ways, and I hate not knowing what goes on in your day,” Harry said, pulling back only so he could look at him and have a face-to-face conversation._

_“Hm. Lot of running, searching, hiding, zapping, tunnel crawling, and fighting,” Louis listed as he left Harry’s lap for the floor beside him, trying to remember what the calm periods had consisted of. “Oh! I married Marley and Erakus on a ship!” he blurted with a grin, eating up Harry’s look of shock and nodding with passion._

_“You married them?” Harry asked with wide eyes, blindsided by the first piece of purely happy news he'd received in far too long._

_“Yup. I was basically on the Titanic, big ass ocean liner owned and captained by Julius Caesar of all beings, going from Dunkirk to Felixstowe with the crew, and Marley and Erakus asked to be wed. So I married them. They’re husbands now,” Louis informed proudly; even though he’d slightly complained at the time, that marriage had actually been the highlight of his life since it crashed and burned. He was truly honoured to have done it._

_“Wait, if Julius is a Captain, why did you marry them?” Harry asked, only wondering because Captains, by default, were certified to officiate weddings, whereas Louis had no qualifi—_

_“I’m a King, dumbass,” Louis stated with a painfully straight face, a fair deal more restrained than he’d originally planned for—he wanted to slap Harry in the face._

_“Pft! Duh,” Harry muttered, laughing at himself for somehow missing that glaring detail. “Wish I coulda been there,” he sighed, his face forlorn from the hurt of missing things he wasn't even aware of. His friends had gotten married—by Louis—and he hadn't seen it._

_“It was quick. No fancy celebration or anything. We were on a boat deck in the middle of the English Channel and then they went to room and board and fucked all night,” Louis said with an air of flippancy; he was trying to make Harry feel better by talking the process down, but he knew it wouldn't necessarily work. Harry was upset and he had every right to be. “But when you're back, we'll have a huge ceremony in some stupidly pristine location with everyone who would want to come. How’s that sound? We'll even make Marley wear a wedding dress. It'll be great,” he said, happy he'd gotten through to Harry by the elated smile he received._

_“Sounds like a plan. If they'd have me, I would stop at nothing to attend,” Harry said, fiddling with his fingers before setting them behind him to lean his weight into, straightening his legs and crossing one ankle over the other._

_“Hadree,” Louis chided, flicking his lover’s temple until he looked at him in defense. “You've gotta stop thinking like that—like you'll have to win everyone's respects back. We know what the situation is, okay? Nobody is shit-talking you for this; not even behind my back. We're all worried, and we're working our asses off to have the strength to save you,” he asserted, carding his fingers through Harry’s curly locks and pulling his head over to knock against his own. “And we’re almost ready.”_

_“You have all nine of Azazel’s siblings?” Harry asked, impressed his lover had been able to orchestrate everything so quickly. Whether or not he'd had help, this had undoubtedly been his initial plan. Only he would think so huge._

_“We have six,” Louis informed, aware he was sleeping on the floor of Anges and Cináed’s borrowed room as they all waited patiently for the last three originals to appear. “But the rest are only a matter of time.”_

_“I hope you know what you're doing,” Harry sighed, flopping onto his back and meeting Louis’ eyes when he laid himself sideways on an elbow. “Azazel is strong.”_

_“Water is wet,” Louis snorted, physically waving the concern away from them and getting serious when Harry gave him his ‘not now’ look. “I know he's strong. The strongest. But...he's also tired. He's getting sloppy, and it leaves us with a blesséd advantage,” he said, praying to those who bless for Azazel to stay frantic._

_“Is he getting sloppy?” Harry asked, more to himself than Louis as he dug into all the past events of late—the memories he hadn't been able to access and view through the right lense._

_“Laughably so. He's running like a lad who killed the mob boss’s wife,” Louis chuckled, relieved but still a bit frustrated that Azazel was acting the cautious way he was. It was funny to Louis to have such an impact on the original’s actions, but it ruled out sneak attacks entirely, and your enemy being extra careful never precipitated an easy final showdown._

_“I wish I could kill him,” Harry rumbled, holding both fists to his forehead and valiantly controlling his anger to a manageable level–no point exploding now._

_“Don't be getting any ideas, Harry. Even when the lure is broken. Killing him is not your job, and as much as I love you, I'd fire you if it was. You can't…” Louis said in something close to reluctance, never a fan of discrediting Harry’s skill, but honestly. He couldn't even begin to equal the strength of his maker._

_“I'm in full understanding of what I can and can't do, Louis...hence why I said ‘wish’?” Harry sighed, dropping his folded hands onto his chest and upholding the staring contest with his beautiful lover. “Don’t worry about me and my resentment. If you’re around me, and I’m freed, I can assure you beyond shadow of a doubt that my only objective will be protecting you—getting you to safety—”_

_“Don’t make me laugh, Harry!” Louis snorted, darting forward to slam their shoulders together like a corporal punishment for being stupid. “By that point, I’ll have assumedly been fighting for quite a while without you. Shit, I may even fight you! I wouldn’t accept your assistance, and you know that. You’d have to throw me in a burlap sack and drag me away, and I’d escape that as well,” he reasoned, hurling Harry off that thought train before he could make any more idiotic promises. “I'm not leaving that fight until its won.”_

_“Fine. Be ignorantly independent—see if I care,” Harry huffed, truthfully aroused at just how strong and fearless his lover was. There are things in this world that would terrify Harry that don’t seem to have an effect on Louis...speaking of… “Lou, have you seen the things underground?” he asked, thinking back to tunnel travels and cringing at the memory of them._

_“Oh...the dwellers. Yeah, I’ve seen ‘em. Nasty things, aren’t they?” Louis muttered, scrunching his face up in disgust. “And I didn’t even know they existed. I didn’t think the Anticus existed either. Been around a long time, and I never saw anything like them. Didn’t much have the time to doubt them when I was getting led out of them and into the Santa Maria, though…”_

_“There’s an entrance to the Santa Maria?” Harry asked in wonderment, widening his eyes when Louis gave him a highly unreadable look that bordered on insane._

_“There’s so much you don’t know,” Louis said with a forceful exhale, knowing he could jump into the originals and the Dyatlov ‘weird things in the world’ revelations, Michael’s helpful betrayal, Agnes, but that he probably didn’t have the time for all that._

_“You have to promise to tell me everything when you can,” Harry said, thinking about the things he knew that Louis might need to. “It’s kinda the same old over here. Doing bad things, loving it, etc..”_

_“Where are you right now?”_

_“Poland? But we’ll be moving soon, I think. I’m not sure where exactly; I tend not to listen to any of the details—”_

_“Harry!” Louis barked, dropping down and slamming into the floor beneath him. “That’s not fucking helpful! Why can’t you just fucking listen and pay attention? You, at your core base, are an impudent child who begs for a toy while the grown-ups are talking, and there is no place for that behavior in a circumstance like this! The world is at stake, Harry!”_

_“I know!” Harry agreed, groaning at himself in disappointment. “I understand that here. But I don’t care about it out there. Auron handles the business, and I do...pretty much nothing but kill things and drink them,” he mumbled, knowing it would be difficult to face himself after all this._

_“Oh fuck,” Louis said to voice his inner thoughts. He didn’t want to admit it, and he wasn’t looking forward to it, but with the information Harry had just given, he now knew without a doubt what he’d have to do: he’d have to visit Auron._

_“What?” Harry asked, rolling onto his side and planting his hand down on Louis’ nearest._

_There was no way Louis was going to confess this revelation to Harry. He didn’t want him feeling any more useless than he probably did. “Everything is just so fucked, Harry. It’s ridiculous,” he deflected, his true turmoil thankfully still under the radar when Harry nodded in understanding._

_“It is. I don’t know what I could have done differently…” Harry trailed, stuck between the opinions that he’d been powerless, and that he could have tried harder._

_“Nothing, Harry. I know you know that. This wasn’t our fault, or the fault of your incompetence. This was carefully constructed...and then Azazel took it to the next level,” he bit, thinking maybe they could have had a chance if that original hadn’t turned the twins into his personal puppets. Alas…_

_“Can we just kiss for a while?” Harry asked, raising his hand to hold Louis’ cheek and greedily pull him closer. “There’s a lot to say, but this thing is gonna start rippling soon, I can feel it. I don’t want to lose you without tasting your lips again,” he murmured, transfixed by the way those lips parted and then formed to a smile._

_“I’d be happy to,” Louis replied, scooting in and rolling Harry toward him until he was hovering above his face. Those green eyes shone down into his own with a luminance even the sun’s reflection couldn’t add to, and his smile was a gift Louis would never again take for granted. Harry had been a snarling monster in Jerusalem, but as much as it technically was, it wasn’t him. This was._

_“Good,” Harry laughed, dipping down and pressing their lips together in that usual puzzle piece way they had cultivated as a couple._

_Louis threw his emotions out the window as Harry kissed him until there was nothing but love, forcing himself to forget this was a dream, forcing himself to forget it would end outside their control, and forcing himself to ignore when the world started to bend. He let the darkness invade their mansion as much as it pleased, knowing it was there but refusing to spare it a glance—one day, he would best it. They would be in this music room without darkness creeping up around them threatening to tear them apart._

_One day...but not right now._

 

_***_

 

“I need the other twin!” Louis cried the millisecond he woke, eyes locking onto Cináed and Agnes sat on the floor against their bed.

“Are you mad?” Cináed growled, kicking out with a foot and making contact with his child’s unguarded kneecap.

“Agh, fuck!” Louis snapped, moving his legs to safety and glaring at his maker. “No, I’m not mad. And I’m not kidding—or backing down from this. Harry is useless. If I can find Auron, I can uncover Azazel’s entire plan. Once we get your family together, we could already have a clear picture of exactly where we’re going and what we’re going to do. We need this information, and Auron is the only one who will give it to me,” he said in quick succession so he wouldn’t be interrupted, making eye contact with Agnes when she resurfaced enough to hold his gaze.

“You really need to learn when to—”

“Cináed,” Agnes chimed, a hand curling over his thigh and gripping him until he looked to the ceiling and groaned the loudest Louis had heard yet. Apparently, he disliked being so easily controlled by his woman, but he wouldn't ever fight it either. Pure love.

“Anges, I’m so sorry to ask. But I really need you to link me in with Auron,” Louis stressed, glad he didn’t have to withstand Cináed’s murderous eyes because they were currently still pointed at the ceiling fan.

“Do you have his object?” Agnes asked, leaning forward to give room when Cináed fit his arm around her back and yanked her closer.

“Yeah, it’s here,” Louis said, pulling the dagger out from his back pocket and handing it over for her to study. As she was focused, he also reached forward and snagged Harry’s necklace back, dropping it down in the pretzel of his legs while she prepared for round two.

“Alright, Louis. I won’t be able to hold this one long. Whatever questions need to be asked, you need to ask them fast,” she warned, making sure he understood that completely before continuing.

“I don’t need long,” Louis vowed, hoping that would prove true once there. All he needed to do was keep Auron’s focus on the questions if he tried to veer off topic, and he figured he could do that with decent ease—Auron, for all his rebellion, was actually rather impressionable.

“Don’t burn yourself out,” Cináed pleaded, holding Agnes close and viscerally hating everything about this. “Come here,” he murmured, leaning behind her and wrapping one arm around her front under her breasts to pull her into the triangle of his legs, using the other hand to scoop under her furthest thigh and help the cause.

“Alright, alright,” Agnes muttered, crab-walking her way with Cináed’s assistance to sit between his legs. Cináed seemed to be satisfied with this position, and he hooked his chin over her shoulder, sighing in acceptance as he rubbed at her stomach. “Louis, get ready. You can actually just cut yourself with that blade,” she informed, closing her eyes and going back to the place she’d too recently left to do it all over again. Whatever must be done, though, she will do.

Louis actually didn’t need to be told he could use the blade, because he had when Jenner had attempted this, but he nodded all the same, holding the dagger to his palm and watching Agnes carefully for her signal. Once she nodded at him and began the spell, he let it slash across his skin, smoothing it everywhere equally and dropping it into the circle made in chalk.

Agnes stole the flame from the candle they’d lit and did her thing, sending Louis tumbling headfirst into...

 

***

 

_“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” he laughed, discovering he was floating gracefully down to the floor of the Auron forest. When Jenner had done this, Louis had violently crashed through the trees en route to the ground like he’d been fired from a cannon in the sky. The skill of magic made all the difference with shit like this._

_He was able to get a clear view of where the clearing was from here and he twisted himself in that direction, wondering why he never ended up in the clearing from the start. He lowered like he was made of air until he was below the treetops, absentmindedly pulling a few leaves from the branches he passed—painlessly. What a concept._

_Eventually, his weightless feet touched the ground, and he disrupted the calm by flashing through the woods toward the clearing, hellbent on finding that Roman fucker to demand he unveil those upcoming plans of his so Louis and his army of resisters could meet him there. He didn’t have long to go until he leapt through and over the shrubbery at the end of the runway, landing with as much dexterity as he could harness in the midst of all his crippling nerves._

_He turned his gaze right, and yup, there he was. Auron. Perpetually lying on his back in the flower patch like some innocent doe. “Auron Aelius, what are your plans?” he barked without any introduction; he’d already startled the vampire by his loud entrance, so what was the point in taking it slow now?_

_“Excus—”_

_“No ‘excuse me,’ Auron, I need your fucking help. Remember everything immediately so we can move on,” Louis begged, stepping closer to him and holding his arms out at his sides. “I am Aléxandros ho Mégas, but you call me Lexy. And you are Auron Aelius, though I usually refer to you as a murdering psychopath. Are we clear yet?”_

_Auron’s face made an amusing number of changes until he landed on disappointment, heaving a lengthy sigh and crashing back onto the flowery grass. “What do you want, Lexy?” he muttered in disdain, not even looking at him as he pouted to the fake sky._

_“What do I—what do you MEAN what do I want? What kind of reaction is that?” Louis gaped, stalking right up to the moody Roman and leaning over him with his hands on his hips. “What’s with you? This is a far cry from the intensity you displayed last time,” he said, egging him on with an expectant expression when he finally met his eyes._

_“I'm a quick thinker,” Auron reasoned, making this infuriatingly passive wave of his hand to demonstrate how much he didn’t care about this important subject. “I remember everything now, including the last dream—why would I need to freak out? I get it.”_

_“Whatever, bitch. Just tell me your plans,” Louis ordered, accepting his mysterious attitude and getting down to business._

_“My plans?” Auron snorted, shaking his head to himself and rolling all the way onto his stomach, keeping his face turned away from the King above him. “As if I'm pulling the strings anymore,” he added with a sneer that was obviously meant for Azazel, hissing when he was roughly rolled onto his back._

_Louis had become quite done with Auron’s sulking and flipped him over, straddling his hips and smashing him down by his neck when he lunged for him. “Think again!” he shouted, grasping Auron’s wrists and pinning them down beside his head, finally overpowering him like usual now that he wasn't weighed down by the high contrast of constant sunlight in his face._

_“Get off me, Alexander,” Auron seethed, his earlier boredom falling away to leave impassioned anger in its stead._

_“That's a first,” Louis noted, surprised he wasn't seeing a lascivious smirk on Auron’s face from the suggestive position of their pelvises. “Come on, cooperate! Just tell me what you're up to so I can come free you. Aren't you mad to be a puppet? Don't you want to get away from Hadrian?”_

_Auron looked away petulantly at that last inquisitory assumption, pursing his lips and refusing to answer because his response wouldn't be what Louis expected, and he knew that._

_“You DON'T?” Louis squeaked, picking up on Auron’s hesitance to be separated from his brother. Had he really read that right? It can't be…_

_“I want to get away from Azazel,” Auron specified, still iffy on that anyway because he was well aware Hadrian wouldn't be so loving without the lure. He hated being controlled, but it had given him everything he wanted—things that would disappear when the control stopped—he was torn in half._

_“So, where are you going next?” Louis begged, setting aside the Hadrian part for later to ensure this dream was successful before it ended._

_“I'm not telling you, Alexander. Maybe I don't want you to come rescuing me like I’m some damsel in distress,” Auron spat, putting up a fight to buck Alexander off his body._

_“Will you let go of your sodding pride for once in your—”_

_“It's not about pride!” Auron roared, seeing an opening in Alexander’s defenses and launching him away, standing so he wasn't immediately pinned again. “Maybe I'm not IN distress. Ever think of that?” he shouted, baring his fangs and hissing when Alexander recovered and tried to step toward him._

_“No, actually, I didn't,” Louis stressed, still reeling from the knowledge that Auron didn't even remotely desire freedom. “What about me? What about your obsession with me?” he asked, realizing that sounded quite vain, but it was too true to censor._

_“Typical,” Auron bit with true hatred in his tone and features, close to laughing at Alexander for his presumptuous mentions. “Aléxandros, King of history, thinking everything is about him,” he drawled, spitting endorphins in Alexander’s direction and making him dodge so he wouldn't get hit._

_“Okay, no. Not really. YOU’RE the one who always made everything about me—”_

_“WAS IT, THOUGH?” Auron bellowed, striding up to the King with purpose and grabbing him by the frozen shoulders. “Was it all about you? I grew to fancy you, sure. But do you really think you were always my top priority? You think you would be NOW? That's fucking hilarious, Alexander,” he snarled, shoving him away and whirling around to use his imagination and find a way out of here._

_Louis blanched and sputtered in confusion, his brows furrowing as he stared at the ground and thought their entire story over. Auron had always wanted to hurt Hadrian, and he'd done a lot to ensure that pain was felt._

_To Louis’ knowledge, Auron had fallen infatuated with him while they all lived together, but he'd still killed him in the end. Then in this life, he'd tormented him to get to Hadrian once again, but that past affection had bled through consistently. He'd even thrown himself in front of Louis and Hadrian to futilely protect them from Azazel._

_So, what could have happened to make him so complacent with his situation now? When he'd acted so offended at first? What was different? He'd spent a lot of time with Hadrian now...maybe that was it. Maybe they were getting along so well he didn't want the hate anymore._

_But he really should have thought about that before killing everything Hadrian ever loved._

_Louis looked up to voice this very thought, but when he did, he saw Auron standing with a gun self-pointed to the side of his head. How he'd acquired the weapon was a mystery, but Louis figured since this was a dream, one could manifest anything of their choosing. Still, though… “Whoa! Don't do that, what the fuck are you—”_

_“Relax, we're in a fucking dream,” Auron snapped, clicking the safety off the pistol and daring Alexander to do something about it; he'd only shoot him instead._

_“You're not gonna tell me jack-shit because you don't want to leave the fake peace Azazel constructed? Having too much fun receiving love from your brother?” Louis balked incredulously, taking back every time he'd ever had something honourable to say about Auron. “You know he fucking hates you, right? He HATES you!”_

_“Shut the fuck up, you sewer rat. You came between us more than anyone, and you have the nerve to shove that in my face?” Auron growled, visibly stopping himself from releasing more insults and suddenly laughing in glee. “You know what? Fine. Come find us. I'll enjoy watching Azazel get rid of you whether I know who you are or not. Who knows, maybe Hadrian will end up helping. Wouldn't that be just tasty? We’ll be in northern Russia in the next few days. There's a group of Guardians out there we're aiming for. Go find them and put yourself in our path. You'll regret it. Until then, Lexy,” he chuckled, pulling the trigger and shattering the world around them with the loudest sound Louis had ever heard._

 

_***_

 

“Zeus in the FUCKING SKY!” Louis choked before wailing in pain, feeling sick and deathly from the forceful removal of the dreamscape.

“What fucking happened!” Cináed demanded, taking in the whining forms of both Agnes and Louis and wondering what had caused them such grief.

“Auron, he...he shot himself in the head,” Louis informed, still shocked he'd gone that far to escape him. This was _not_ the Auron he was used to.

“With a _gun_?” Cináed asked dubiously, taken so far aback by that statement that his arms lifelessly dropped down to his sides.

“No, a crossbow,” Louis deadpanned, rolling his eyes before correcting, “yes, _of_ _course_ a gun.”

“Watch it!” Cináed snapped, regaining his composure and wrapping his arms around his woman.

“I've never heard of someone breaking the world in-between,” Agnes panted, holding her forehead to combat the ache in her skull.

“Leave it to that one,” Louis muttered, also wracked with a migraine he knew wouldn't be going away anytime soon.

“No more Auron, then,” Cináed decided, unwilling to let this happen again with such an unpredictable vampire.

“Don't have to tell me twice,” Louis sighed; he wouldn't go to Auron again if someone ordered him to. There was nothing for him there.

“Did you learn anything? Was there a point to that?” Cináed asked, prepared to accept the unfortunate aftereffects if it had led them in a good direction.

“Russia. They're gonna be in Russia to fight the Guardians. I don't know when—he only said in the next few days. Don't know where either; only gave me north; but Julius would probably know which Guardians Auron meant,” he said, deciding he needed to get that information to Julius as soon as possible; he'd go to him after he left here.

“Suppose that's good, then,” Cináed grunted, piercing Aggie’s neck with his fangs to cure the pain in her head.

Louis ducked out at that point, thanking the bleary Agnes again for all her selfless help to the cause and deeply bowing to apologize to Cináed, who wasn't paying any attention to him anyway. And with that, he was out the door, en route to Julius’s room before they all fell asleep to alert him of the confessed location they should be setting their sights on.

He didn't particularly know what they were to do, and how to go about this mess, but he knew they'd figure it out. Bottom line, the rest of the groups had better get back within an hour of waking up at sunset, or there would be hell to pay. They had days. They had to leave _tonight._

 

\---

 

Louis, for the entirety of his sleep, had dreamed of Auron. A normal dream, not a mentally connected and frightfully vivid one. One he couldn't control. All he remembers is watching Auron walk away from him and toward some giant incandescent door, and someone shot him with a bullet, then the door opened and swallowed him whole. He knew there'd been more, including dialogue, but that last bit was the only thing left standing out.

Who had been holding the gun, though? Louis tried to think back to the dream, envisioning it as clearly as possible and wrenching his head to the right to try and catch who it might be. That obviously didn't work, but he got an inkling he couldn't ignore. It was Harry.

Was it a vision, then? A look into the future? Louis could probably think about it all night, but he knew his head needed to be dedicated to the matters at hand. Which was proven more when he heard voices downstairs he'd never before encountered, and ones he certainly had: Erakus, Niall, his mother, Martin, and Lotta.

“And no one thought to wake me up?” he muttered, pulling himself out of bed and flicking on the ceiling light to locate his clothes. He'd slept naked for the day because Julius’s sheets were white silk, and the feeling on his skin mirrored that of Harry’s black ones at the Fortwright mansion. If only he'd had Harry’s equally silky skin to go along with that.

He dressed himself in the only basics you'd find in Julius’s house: white underwear, black slacks, fancy thin dress socks, and a cotton long-sleeved button-down top in a shade of faded yellow. Taking a glance in the closet mirror, he thought he looked a bit like a bumblebee, so he traded the yellow shirt for a black one. Much better.

He grabbed his trusty Adidas (that had been through hell, but miraculously hadn't given him any iconic shoelace drama to retaliate) and smacked them onto his feet, those two accessories being the black sheep in the flock of _distinguished_. He snorted when he stood at full height and discovered the bottom hem of his pant legs were trapped halfway underneath his sneakers, so he rolled them up to his ankles, cursing his small height for giving him issues most beings didn't need to stress over.

His hair was a nest, so he skittered to the bathroom across the hall from his room to splash some water on it. He slicked back the sides and fiddled with the fringe a bit, but his hair had grown too long to comply with that method of styling. Grunting, he shook it all out and let it stick out everywhere in spite, wondering why he'd even tried to doll himself up for going into battle. Gotta look good when you kill your enemies, right? Stupid.

He dried his hands off and busted out of the bathroom, walking down the hall to the curved stairs and taking them down two at a time to reach the living room that much faster. When he passed the corner and entered said room, his gaze flew immediately to the three new originals in his presence, eyes driven by the compass of his nose.

The original with the Sparrows, who he assumed to be Ráðspakr, was a beast of a male, whose muscles eclipsed Cináed’s by a long shot, and whose aura was almost as intimidating as Kazimir’s ( _almost_ ). He had board-straight light blonde hair that reached down to his lower back, and a darker beard that hung to his collarbones, and his eyes were the same ice blue of the Finnish vampires he’d indirectly created—only brighter.

Seriously, all he needed was an axe in one hand, a battle sword in the other, and he’d complete his Viking stereotype. Also, he was wearing leather pants...Louis just considered that worth documenting.

His eyes traveled next to Hiroto, which was obviously Hiroto because Louis remembered Japan being mentioned, and this creature was the definition of pale Asian beauty. White as a sheet, big and gorgeously slanted eyes that held the prettiest brown to date, thick black hair tied in a traditional top knot bun, but it was messy, and pieces hung down all over the place that swayed with the slightest breeze from the overhead fan. Don’t get him started on the full lips, either...

Hiroto indeed wore a wafuku kimono with expertly organized layers underneath, and pleated hakama pants that parachuted around his surely thin legs within, and Louis wasn’t even surprised to see a katana tied around his hips. It would seem Hiroto had fought as a samurai in the past, and Louis was almost anxious to see him wield his katana with the grace and agility that only the samurai had ever been able to harness.

And Sukarno was...a child?! Louis furrowed his brows and Sukarno’s eyes flicked to his with a studiously pointed gaze, one such that a child would not have the experience to pelt anyone with. He had a dark complexion, light sandy hair that contrasted to that shade, and eyes so bright and vividly green they put Harry’s to shame— _to shame._

There was no debating Sukarno was an original sibling, and his presence sent chills down Louis’ spine as much the others’ did, but he had manifested in the form of an eternal child who couldn’t stand taller than three and a half feet, and staring at him was one of the weirder experiences Louis had been witness to in a while.

All these documentations had transpired rather quickly, considering his mind was able to process things at a fast rate, and the first call of his name happened only three seconds after he’d arrived.

“Louis!”

It was Niall. “Oh, Niall, I’m so happy to see you,” Louis greeted, accepting the hello hug his best friend bestowed upon him. “I was worried about all of you,” he added, trying to meet everyone’s eyes at least once to share a moment with them.

“It’s good to see you too, Louis,” Martin said with a smile, snickering at the frantically-waving Tanner under his arm.

Louis made his rounds of either introductions or ‘hello again’s, circling the room and letting Julius name all the Guardians he’d called to his house for the upcoming journey. There were plenty of new faces to familiarize himself with, and it seemed like the formalities dragged on forever, but soon enough, Louis was shaking forearms with a blank-faced Sukarno and trying to hold his own before the scary child.

He learned Sukarno had been discovered under the sweltering lands near the Kawah Ijen volcano (famous for its blue lava) in Indonesia, and he’d put up quite the fight before Aguta had convinced him to come along for the ride. He was here, though, so it had obviously worked. Louis bets on Akna being the ultimate convincing voice—he doubts Aguta could get anything done.

Ráðspakr was found in his riverside cabin in Karesuando, Sweden, where the Aurora Borealis frequently visits, and the Utul/Sparrows group had been forced to wait until he was done making love to his two vampire boyfriends before they could even begin to approach him. He’d been more than willing to join the cause, though, practically tripping over himself to get dressed and follow his children to England.

Lastly, Hiroto had been spotted in the mountains of Hokkaido (northern Japan), Mount Rishiri to be specific, in a forgotten Shinto shrine, complete with the towering half-H gate outside the path, sleeping soundly with his human woman inside. At the news of the plan, he’d heavily contemplated it, then journeyed down the mountain and called upon his closest children for a favour. Once found, he ran the four chosen ones back up to his shrine and left them there to protect Nanami with their existences until he returned. Louis sincerely hoped he would.

With all the backstories out of the way, Louis continued to make decent companionships with the three new originals (though he needed translators for Akna and Sukarno, who had both refused to learn English), and once established, Louis stood back to just _look_ at their statures in one place at one time. Cináed, Kazimir, Utul-Ishtar, Ráðspakr, Sukarno, Aguta, Akna, Hiroto, and Max. All against Azazel. _Surely_ this would be enough to take him down.

“I think it’s time for the blueprints of our objective, wouldn’t you say?” Julius asked Louis, who nodded agreeably and sat himself in an unused chair (one of many that had been brought out so everyone could relax if they so chose to), and the noise of the room died down as eyes turned to Julius atop his coffee table. “The largest coalition of Guardians in the world right now is located in Russia—in the Central Siberian Plateau just east of the Yenisei River. They number now at least two-hundred, and the forming was fairly recent. If Auron is targeting Guardians in North Russia, it is most certainly this army,” he said, looking all over the room because there were so many eyes to meet and speak this news to.

“Have you made contact?” Louis wondered, shrugging when Julius looked at him like he had a negative IQ. “What? I went to bed right after I told you,” he defended, crossing one leg over the other and slouching down in his chair. “My head was on fire.”

“Yes, I made contact. They said they're aware of a plot against them, and they've been preparing for it for a week,” Julius recited, relaying the information he'd already given to Petra and Bernard to the rest of their party.

“What are they doing in Siberia?” Louis asked with a perplexed face, leaning forward and resting the underside of his forearms just above his knees. “Not an insane amount of humans to save out there. At least, not in that area.”

“They just banded there for privacy,” Julius explained, diving into the specifics he'd been given. “These vampires came from every Slavic, Ugric, Nordic, and Central Asian nation there is; that entire part of the world’s Guardians flocked to a hidden zamok in the Siberian mountains to storm every major city as a unit and take back the eastern world. With an upcoming battle, especially one with the main components of the predator forces, they could certainly use our help, and any help we can find on the way.”

“Zeus—this is going to be ridiculous,” Louis groaned, both looking forward to and dreading this gruesome event. Many would die, that was undeniable, but would any of them? Would their deaths outweigh the deaths of the predators? Would the originals overtake Azazel? Would all this be in vain—or would they save the planet? “What other help can we receive?”

“I can call upon every coven I know of,” Agnes chimed, meeting Louis’ gaze with a confident smirk. “They’ll help me—I’m a Waterhouse. I know Auron has got warlocks with him, or he wouldn’t have had the Book of Bane in his possession; and believe me, we’ll need our own to fight them; there are many ways we magicals can kill vampires without putting ourselves in their direct path. This is something we cannot overlook.”

“She’s right. Distinguished warlocks are a danger to us all; they’ll be unseen in the shadows, and we’ll be too focused on each other to notice them. That’ll be some of our demises if we don’t cancel it out,” Cináed confirmed, while to his side, Jenner audibly gulped in fear.

“Alright. So we’ll leave the warlocks to the other warlocks Agnes finds, we vampire descendants will fight the predators, and we’ll leave Azazel to his siblings,” Louis listed, the three separate forces almost seeming comical to be shoved into one deciding fight for supremacy.

“We’ll also leave the twins to you,” Martin stated, eliciting a round of nods from everyone who automatically knew what ‘the twins’ meant.

“Yeah, that’ll be fun,” Louis muttered sarcastically, looking to Cináed to ask the top thing on his mind. “How would you break Azazel’s lure? Would you have to kill him, or can you distract him enough to loosen the bind? I know how our lures work, but yours are so far above them, I’m unfamiliar with the process.”

“Well, first of all, we won’t be killing him, per se. We can only send him back to our world, but we can do it in a way in which he can’t ever come back. And if we distract him enough, his lure will fall away, and if we _keep_ him distracted, he won’t have the time to readminister it. But he needs to be _extremely_ distracted, and it’ll take even us as a whole a while to get him to that point. Azazel is stupidly strong. He came before us all, and we’re only pieces of a fraction that add up to him. That’s why we needed each of us at once. It wouldn’t work with anything less,” Cináed sighed, still nervous about it even with all the promising numbers they had. If Azazel managed to relocate (for all intents and purposes, kill) even one of them, they’d be at a gigantic disadvantage.

“These odds…” Louis snorted, laughing to his lap though absolutely nothing about it was amusing.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, Alexander,” Aguta said flippantly, giving the King a wink when he looked up. “The only one of us Azazel could effortlessly kill is Max, and we’re going to protect him so that doesn’t happen.”

“I resent that,” Max muttered, baring his fangs at his Inuit brother and gearing up to hiss before he was interrupted.

“Because it’s true,” Ráðspakr jabbed, hissing at Max when he faced him before he could even try to do it first.

“When do we leave?” Louis asked Julius before the siblings’ bickering could get any worse, thankfully causing Max to drop his anger and focus on the Roman.

“After Agnes contacts the covens, and Lauren and Lawrence get here. They called earlier and said they were on their way. Once we have a clear vision and plan for the congregation in Siberia, we’ll make for the plateau,” he said, knowing he had just a few more Guardians of his own to call and direct to the northeast.

“I know this sounds selfish, but what about my human?” Liam asked, holding Johnny close and fretting over the idea of leaving him here unprotected, _and_ taking him to Siberia. “I have several household humans here as well that I need to protect.”

“Best plan is to bring them along. I believe quite a few humans will be left behind in the zamok while we make for battle, and they’re honestly safer there than here. None will be left here, and predators still idly roam England. It seems counter-productive, but taking them into the thick of it is actually the better course of action,” Julius said, smiling when Liam’s torn mind seemed to have made itself up.

“I don’t like to rush things, but Anges, could you…” Louis trailed, not needing to finish the statement because it was an obvious one.

“Yeah, one second,” Anges quipped, closing her eyes and slumping into Cináed’s chest while she unconsciously murmured an incantation that had Jenner rapt with amazement. Apparently, that was skilled magicals’ way of globally communicating with one another.

Conversation died down as she spoke strings of foreign sentences under her breath, and all seemed to be intrigued in the process, and what would come of it—what the covens’ consensuses would be. It might have been five minutes before she popped her eyes back open and sat up straight, a grin of victory splitting her cheeks. “They’re in. _Way_ in. They’ll zap to Siberia when I give the word,” she announced, causing whoops of success here and there throughout the room.

“That’ll be interesting,” Jenner mumbled, having not been around that many magicals since he had an actual family in his life. He would proudly represent the Cromwells in this historic war, whether Harlock forbade him or not. This was bigger than their relationship, and that sounds harsh, but it really was. This was for the world.

“They’ll love you,” Agnes assured just for him, only heard room-wide because vampire ears were annoyingly superior.

“Oi oi!” Lauren cried from the archway with Lawrence, and most hilariously, Michael.

“I knew I smelled you three,” Louis laughed, walking up to embrace each one, and most weirdly, Michael. “You’re really going to fight your own forces?” he asked, pulling back to skewer Michael with an unsure look.

“They’re not my forces. I work for Auron, and Auron alone. And that’s not Auron. I’ll fight to get him back,” the predator-turned-ally vowed, ruffling Louis’ hair and stepping further into the room.

Louis didn’t have the heart to tell Michael that Auron probably wasn’t going to make out of this alive; his cooperation was unexpected as is, and it balanced on a thin thread. He could plan all the idealistic futures he wanted so long as he stayed in the dark of the likely truth and continued to be helpful.

Maps were laid out on the coffee table as Julius helped Anges locate their precise destination, and Liam called his humans down from upstairs. Once they tottered into the mass crowd, Louis had to bark a laugh at the diversity of creatures in a single room.

Mere humans, magical beings, young vampires, Elder and ancient vampires, Guardian vampires, a predator, nine archaic originals, and a half-dweller...just ridiculous. But more than ridiculous, it was deadly. When they all came together with their fully-sized forces, they would be more dangerous than his Red Hawk High’s cafeteria chili had been to a digestive system.

Their enemies, by all accounts, were fucked.

So long as Azazel’s siblings kept him in check, the side of the righteous would be invincible. And Harry Styles, Hadrianus Aelius, would once again be irrefutably, absolutely, and unreservedly his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking Auron, man. So wishy washy. Gonna be heartbreaking for him, innit? Poor bastard. I love that evil bean. But evil beans must get their comeuppance. Even if they're deeper than just "evil." Evil deeds are evil deeds—simple like that. Enacting them always comes back to get you. Because karma is real as fuck.  
> I don't have that big a group of readers on this anymore, but if there is anyone here in the MonBebe, I'm seeing our boys in like...18 days? And I'm barely alive. Just had to share that.  
> Until next time. THE LAST. CHAPTER. BEFORE. THE THING. THE THINGGGGG.


	20. Starts With An H

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reading the comments from the last chapter, I THINK some of you might have thought the battle would be this chapter. It's not, though, it's the next one. Sorry, haha I did say "the last chapter (meaning this one) before the thing."  
> In any case, a question you may not have known you had will be answered in this. If you suspected it, congrats, you were right.  
> The next I'll write a beginning author's note, I'll be furiously apologize preemptively. I havent even started it, just finished this one fifteen minutes ago, so we're all on the same page. Enjoy this peace while you have it. I love you lol
> 
> UPDATE (7/20): If anyone sees this, yes I'm still alive. And working on 21. Lotta things holding me back, but I'm chugging along. Will get it out the second I'm comfortable with it.
> 
> UPDATE #2 (7/24): SO CLOSE. I'm almost there. I'm very very sorry, and you've been so patient with me, just a little while longer, maybe later today.

Hadrian stalked through the ludicrously lavish halls of the Kremlin in Moscow, surrounded by the most gold he’d ever seen in one place, and that was saying a lot—he’d been to a lot of fancy places, but this had to top them all. He knew if a certain French were here, he would rave passionately about how similar to Erebor it was and how it was probably built by dwarves.

Wait...a certain French? _Who am I thinking about?_ he thought to himself, racking his brain for any vampires he'd met lately from France _—_ a vampire he'd spoken to deeply enough to discover their love for J.R.R Tolkien. Who…

“Hadrian, are you okay?” Azazel asked, appearing behind him and placing a hand on the small of his back.

A wave of calm swept over Hadrian and he looked over his shoulder, discovering he'd somehow moved from the center of the hall to the side, and he was bent over forward with no memory of leaning. “What happened?” he asked, straightening up and touching his forehead.

“You were stumbling and you ran into the wall,” Azazel informed with concern in his tone, not yet letting Hadrian go in case he actually fell. He understood perfectly why Hadrian had experienced a moment of weakness, but he couldn’t let on he knew this.

“I did?” Hadrian asked, looking around and trying to remember the last minute or so. Nothing came to mind, and that didn’t make too much sense. _What’s wrong with me?_

“Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep?” Azazel supplied, scrambling to find some other reason that didn’t involve his weakening lure. If this didn’t get swept under the rug, he’d have to erase the last minute as well, but he was positive he could talk his way out of this one. “The sun will be up again relatively soon; that could be another reason. You’ve been spending too much time lately awake in the day.”

“That’s probably it,” Hadrian agreed, stuck with that as his last possibility and having no other choice but to accept it. He was a vampire, not a human—he was not ill. So, exhaustion had to be the cause. He did feel a little spacey, after all.

“Unfortunately, you cannot relax just yet. Auron is in the banquet hall, and I believe the meeting has begun. You must take your place at his side,” Azazel said, walking Hadrian toward the hall to put this blip of dissonance behind them.

“These meetings,” Hadrian muttered, accepting his fate because only he belonged at Auron’s side and he was glad to be as revered as his brother was. They were a team of two that shook the world, and even though he didn’t do much in the grand scheme, the respect that came along with being Auron’s most important creature was close to worship—and his historic Roman side ate it up like a feast.

“Promise me you’ll get enough sleep today. We make for Siberia in one day’s time,” Azazel said needlessly, considering Hadrian had known that when he woke up.

“I will,” Hadrian agreed, aware he’d need to be well-rested before fighting on a battlefield—something he hadn’t done in far too long. Something his every fibre was _itching_ for. The anticipation almost hurt, and he couldn’t wait to unleash his beast on a bunch of rats. For now, though, meetings of battle plans for the less skilled warriors (everyone besides them) were sadly necessary, and he had to be patient.

“You know I love you, right?” Azazel asked, placing a hand on Hadrian’s shoulder as they walked to the banquet hall, feeling the need to disclose this because the ever-present look of wonder on the youngest twin’s face was nerve-racking.

“Of course,” Hadrian agreed instantly, looking to his maker with a confused smile on his face. “I love you too, Zaza,” he sighed, throwing an arm over his maker’s shoulders and pressing their sides together.

“Come here, you,” Azazel chuckled, pivoting toward his child until he got an arm around his lanky frame, lifting him into his chest and letting his legs lock around his back.

“I’m not an actual child, you know,” Hadrian noted, knowing without a doubt he’d said this multiple times before—Zaza never listens.

“No, you’re even cuter,” Azazel snorted, quickening his pace to the room because he heard Auron’s voice booming to his followers.

Hadrian let his chin rest over Azazel’s shoulder and made his arms limp, going along with the spontaneous carrying because he was lazy and it was grand. His ears perked when he heard Auron, and he felt an onslaught of admiration course through him at the sound—there was nothing else in the world like Auron being a leader.

Azazel reached the doors to the ballroom and swung the right one open, walking across the front of the room where Auron was sat upon yet another throne (his favourite thing) and addressing a room full of stood forces hanging onto his every syllable.

Hadrian tapped Azazel’s back to be set down and then strutted to stand beside his brother, sparing him a wink as he walked in front of him. Auron fondly rolled his eyes and then Hadrian took his place to the right of the throne, leaning a forearm up on the backrest and assessing their flock of loyal geese.

“They haven’t moved, right?” one asked to the general company of the room, wanting to make sure of that before he alerted his unit of the location. 

“Nope,” Auron replied, stealing the words out of the vampire who had opened his mouth to answer. “They’re still in Siberia.”

“They know we’re coming—why _haven’t_ they moved?” another asked, fearing they may have some formidable advantage that gave them this confidence.

“Because they underestimate us,” Auron said surely, fully believing the Guardians were ignorantly marinating out of false senses of hope. “They’ve probably only fought our foot soldiers before—not us. The Elders. And they don’t know we have Azazel with us...the most powerful vampire in the world,” he added with a smirk, looking over to his maker and snorting when Azazel performed a dramatic and flourishing bow in response.

“No,” Beatrix unexpectedly piped all the way from the back of the room, standing up when heads turned in search of her voice. “They’s got Elders with ‘em too—Elders who _know_ who some of us are. They’re not that daft. They’ll have got tricks up their sleeves, you be sure… Don’t ‘fink it’s enough to cause an uproar, but they’ll have got _somefin’_ ,” she asserted, refusing to let her side of this fight get too complacent in their superiority—even with the obvious advantage of Azazel.

“What could they _possibly_? Azazel?” Auron turned to ask the question to him, watching his face turn from nervous to innocently thoughtful in the span of a second. _Did I imagine that?_

Azazel had thought about this. He’d had to; ever since he’d smelled his brother in Rome, he’d been curious over why. Why had he crawled out of his American hole to assist Alexander of all beings? Then of course he knew Cináed was involved from that brief encounter in Jerusalem, so there were at least two. Alexander being in league with them wasn’t concerning in itself but what if— _what if_ they’d found more?

That particular suspicion had set in when his brother had bellowed down the tunnels after him—it had grown exponentially when he'd seen Cináed again, but it had _started_ in Rome. His youngest brother had said, “ _We’ll find_ _you_.” Not ‘I’ll,’ but _we’ll_. Azazel could only assume that meant his whole family, whom he’d fallen into discourse with shortly before embarking to this world. It had only been the little ones at first, but then he’d lost touch with Cináed, Kazimir, and Utul as well...surely that band of spliced primates hadn’t been able to find _all_ his siblings, though...and there was no proof they’d even be _at_ this Guardian battle. He had no evidence they were in Russia whatsoever...he was probably being paranoid.

“Azazel?” Hadrian asked, just as confused at his maker’s weighted pause as Auron.

“Yeah,” Azazel grunted, pulling himself out of his thoughts before he gave everything away. He would cross that bridge when he came to it, but for now, no such plan against him existed. “I was just thinking. They may or may not have two of my siblings with them, but even if they do, it won’t be a problem for me. I can chop them down like trees,” he chuckled, not exaggerating in the slightest. Cináed would put up a bit of valiant resistance, being the second in age below himself, but that wouldn’t win him the fight.

“What would two of your siblings be doing with Guardians in Siberia?” Auron asked, turning himself all the way around in his seat to stare his maker down.

“Because I know two of them have been helping the strongest of the Guardians. I don’t know for sure about Siberia, either...it’s just a suspicion. Something to keep in mind,” he deflected, hoping he wouldn’t have to use more compulsion to change the topic of conversation. He was digging himself a hole with this.

“Very well. If they’re there, we’ll leave them to you,” Auron said, hoping Azazel would be able to dispose of them as quick as he said he could because if left to roam, those siblings could sweep half their forces off the map in seconds.

“That would be best, yes,” Azazel laughed, picturing how quickly anyone else but him would get destroyed at the hands of his siblings.

“When do we leave?” Beatrix asked, satisfied to hear what that sleeve trick allegedly was—she’d just known there was one. She had no doubts those siblings would be in Siberia. It only makes sense. _This will be interesting._

“Tomorrow evening,” Auron answered, scratching his chin and crossing one thigh over the other. “We’ll start the preparations at sundown. I’ll leave the humans to Beatrix and Mi…” Curse him, he almost said ‘Michael.’ “...and Hugo. We don’t need them falling out of their lures during a—”

“Auron, I hate to disregard your wishes,” Beatrix began, not sounding particularly sorry about it in any sense of the word. “But me? On human duty? I don’t ‘fink that’s fair, is it? I’m lookin’ to rearrange some organs here. Me fighting’s _top_ , and if you don’t—”

“ _Alright_ , Bea. You can fight with us. I only chose you because your lures are highly advanced for your age,” Auron sighed, choosing another recipient at will and giving him the duty he’d originally stuck on the Londoner. “Happy?” he asked her, rolling his eyes when she grinned and gave a curt nod. “And the warlocks? You will be able to transport us all?” he asked, turning his gaze to the back-right corner where all his magical assets were huddled together and murmuring amongst themselves.

“Yes?” the strongest of the bunch replied, his dubious tone suggesting Auron’s question had been one of ignorance.

“Testy,” Auron muttered, accepting the answer and wrapping everything up because a lengthy talk with that prat was not something he desired. “Then retire for the rest of the night. Get some sleep, drink blood, have all your sex now, for some of you won’t be walking out of this. Be ready at sundown—we’ll meet here in this room,” he said, standing from his seat and excusing his forces.

They filed out with a unanimous salute (that the warlocks didn’t participate in), and eventually only his brother and maker were left in his vicinity. He sat back down and rubbed his face, exhausted from the constant energy it takes to be a quick-thinking leader.

“Are we going to bed too?” Hadrian asked, his long hair half in his face as he leaned over the throne and gazed down at him.

“We probably should soon,” Auron mused, racking his brain for anything else left to take care of before sundown.

“Will your siblings really be there?” Hadrian asked to Azazel, straightening up so he could see him over the top of the throne.

“I told you, I’m not sure,” Azazel snapped, changing his tone when Hadrian’s eyes widened in surprise. “Sorry. Hopefully not, but I can’t predict it. It’s been irking me…” he admitted, only able to confess such stresses because with his twins, he felt no shame in opening his heart.

“Fighting with your siblings...that would be heartbreaking, wouldn’t it? I can’t imagine fighting with Auron,” Hadrian said, plopping himself down on his brother’s lap and nuzzling into his neck when arms snaked around his hips.

Azazel had to bite back a cackle at Hadrian’s lure-driven obliviousness. Before he’d brought them together, fighting is all these twins had ever done. And the fact that their relationship could potentially revert back to what it was tomorrow night... _that_ was the stress factor of his siblings being involved. It wasn’t the fear for his own existence in this world; rather, it was the fear that if they (meaning all of his siblings) were capable of making him use real _effort_ to fight them, he wouldn’t be able to keep any focus on his twins. And he’d lose them. “I’m going to bed...good day, boys,” he said, exiting the room so he could ponder to himself in private.

“What would _we_ have to fight about?” Auron asked his brother, both engrossed in each other and paying no further mind to Azazel’s issues.

“The fact that you got four nipples and I only got two,” Hadrian supplied, laughing at himself along with Auron.

“I’ve never understood your envy over my congenital malformation,” Auron chuckled, looking down with Hadrian when his younger brother pulled his shirt up to his throat to inspect them.

“Don’t call them malformations, Auron,” Hadrian chided, squinting his eyes and trying to wage if they’d gotten any bigger since he’d last studied them. Which must have been...well, it couldn’t have been _that_ long ago. They’ve been together their whole lives. “And I don’t know, they’re just nifty,” he said, shrugging once he’d gotten his look in and sliding his shirt back down to his hips. “Good conversation starter.”

“Pft!” Auron spat, throwing his head back in laughter. “What, ‘Hi, my name is Auron, I have four nipples’?” he challenged, shaking his head when Hadrian only stared at him like he found that perfectly acceptable.

“It would get _my_ attention,” Hadrian defended, holding onto Auron when he stood from the throne and hiked him up his body.

“Please. A passing moth would get your attention,” Auron teased, his feet walking him to their room because he’d rather banter lying on a bed than smushed on a throne.

“But only you can _keep_ it,” Hadrian praised, taking a moment to wonder why he’d spent so much time being carried in someone’s arms lately. He was the furthest thing from a Princess, but Azazel and his brother seemed rather fond of treating him like one.

“I’m honoured,” Auron said with dripping sarcasm, smirking into Hadrian’s eyes when he huffed in fake offense. “Really, Hayway,” he pressed in all seriousness, witty cracks far behind him because in actuality, meaning something to Hadrian (regardless of how inescapable that was anyway) was all he really wanted out of life. “I’m honoured.”

 

\---

 

Louis stared down at the zamok (castle) they’d just zapped close to, and he felt immediately as though he’d stepped into a fairytale. He’d been to and inside many a castle in his days, but none had felt so mystical to view. The Romanesque architectural beauty was straight out of a storybook, and he wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sleeping Princess stuck in the top tower—along with a water and/or ice dragon, supposing he could alter the traits of an already fictional beast.

It sat secluded inside the dip of four lonely mountainsides, hidden from view unless you observed it from the right angle, and its stature somehow still domineered over the grand slopes. It had a towering border of metallic walls to protect it from avalanches (though Louis figured it would fare without), and huge clumps of hoarfrost, which also reigned over the trees, covered every part of it, making it look like an icy wonderland from another world—a world of eternal winter.  

“Beautiful,” Jenner and Niall both breathed at once, looking to each other and smiling at their similar tastes.

“Do we knock on the door, or…?” Louis wondered, narrowing his eyes against the dry cold as a vampire emerged from the distant structure and made gestures with his arms.

“I believe he is beckoning us closer,” Julius informed, waving back at the Elder and half-stepping, half-sliding down the decline with Bernard at his side to reach the outside walls.

“All the encouragement I need,” Louis quipped, gracefully following after the other, _other_ Romans in his life and subconsciously racing Petra down when she came up on his side. They still had tension.

Louis was somewhat startled when something unexpectedly zoomed past him, but training his eyes, he found it was only Cináed, sledding barefoot on top of the snow with a whooping Agnes in his arms. _Show-off,_ he thought, simultaneously wondering how a creature such as Cináed, a strong and powerful original (not to mention with a rather large build), could also be so elegantly weightless.

In small groups of mostly threes, Louis’ group reached the bottom of the slope, walking up to the gate that was slowly sliding aside for their entry. The creaky metal door screeched with a surround-sound-echo, bouncing off the mountainsides like a Newton’s Cradle in the atmosphere, but Louis abstained from covering his ears, disinclined to mark his first impression as a sensitive wuss.

When the gate had opened far enough for the width of two creatures, a slender man with spiky black hair and amber eyes snuck through the gap, studying his newcomers with a merely curious expression, not one of distrust. He spent special time peering at Cináed, Finley, and Alexander himself (plus Øvind, simply because his presence made no sense), then swept over everyone else approvingly.

“Anatoly,” Julius greeted cordially, he and his two lovers putting distance between themselves and their group to stand out as they bowed.

The Elder called Anatoly grinned to see Julius, two cratered dimples and bright white teeth showing themselves as he did so. Louis had to look away from the cheek indents and focus on his hairline instead—only his twins should have dimples. Dimples belong to the Aelius family; anyone else was merely copying.  

“Julius, Brute, and Cleopatra,” Anatoly addressed with respective smiles to each, trotting up to embrace his evident friends.

Louis hadn’t gotten any information (meaning Julius hadn’t mentioned) that painted Julius as _friends_ with the Guardian leader they had traveled to be in the company of, but he considered it an advantage to have—best not to waste time on introductions with a battle afoot.

“Come inside, all of you. No use talking out here in the snow,” Anatoly said with his assumedly Ukrainian accent, retreating through the little space of the opened gate and making everyone form a line to follow.

Louis fell in behind Cináed and interlocked his fingers behind his head, staring up at the black and clouded skies they were in the dome of and speculating if it will have snowed even more by the time they meandered outside again. He wondered if the zamok had ever been completely buried in snow before—how could it not, right? This was Siberia, after all.

Anatoly hopped up the stairs to the single but colossal door that separated the interior of the grand estate from its frigid exterior, and after a few more paces and shuffles of feet, and everyone was stood inside, eyes scouring in every which direction to document their findings.

There was a time, not that long ago in Louis’ newfound life via Stacey, that he would have dropped to his knees to be in a place like this...not so much anymore, but he was still impressed. It had a feel of Harry’s gloomy mansion to it, and that didn’t necessarily make it a happy and enjoyable environment, but there was a tiny element of it that made Louis feel like he could navigate its secrets with ease.

To finally explain, they’d entered in a wide hall of especially dusty condition and followed it into the foyer, and the vintage, tasteful Victorian style decor had Louis basking in approval—give him musty, dusty, and rusty, or give him death. The once-warm brown of the wood paneling was practically grey from years of wear and tear, and the rugs beneath him had that same pigment frown; without needing to see, Louis knew every object in the whole zamok lacked saturation—drained like the place had been ravaged by a vampire hungry for colour.   

Louis could infer the zamok had been last owned by a Duchess (or some other rich, female oligarch) by the interspersed collection of paintings depicting infamous Russian woman leaders: Catherine the Great, Elizabeth of Russia, and Anna of the same. Not that those women weren’t also respected by men, because they were, but the specific theme was plain to the eye.   

“You like this?” Anatoly asked, making wide gestures with his hands to the walls of which Louis’ eyes were glued to.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” Louis said, scratching at his hair and yawning into the collar of his button-down so as not to appear rude.

“We’re in the house of Lady Vasiliev. A proud and innovative woman of the early 19th century—so fluent in the trade and economy of her homeland that she earned well over enough money to keep her afloat for the rest of her days,” Anatoly informed, blind and deaf to the fact that not a single of his audience members cared about so much detail.

“Why hasn’t anyone else bought this place?” Louis wondered, staring at the old family pictures stuck to the deteriorating walls in confusion—such a huge estate, and no one had showed interest in the investment since her death?

“The locals believe it is haunted by her ghost,” Anatoly explained, only knowing that because one of his Siberian friends had informed him the same thing when he’d asked that very same question. “She had herself buried here, so in turn, the place is gazed upon with superstitious eyes.”

“We’ll take our chances. I trust she won’t mind our invasion,” Julius laughed, crossing the floor in two wide steps until he was close enough to touch his friend. “Now, dear, I believe you have a coalition to show us,” he said coyly like it was some juvenile game of show-and-tell.

“I do, indeed. Follow me,” Anatoly said like the composed, seasoned vampire he was assumed to be, abandoning his earlier frivolity as he obediently led them through the bowels of the zamok, up and down steps and through halls of all sizes in silence.

A hand clasped Louis’ and he squeezed his eyes shut; with everyone’s scents so close together, it could be anyone, and he might not like finding out. His money was on Aguta, though, and he grudgingly opened his eyes to look over and bare his fangs—it was Marley. “What is it?” he asked under his breath, holding the hand back in earnest now that he knew it wasn’t a harassing original.

“You’ve had to do so much on your own, and I just wanted to say we’re all here for you. We love you, okay? We’re going to get Hadrian back,” he said, unintentionally living up to his reputation of being Louis’ favourite Aussie. The fact that Louis didn’t really know any others was just a coincidence.

“And...we know you’re going after them yourself,” Erakus butted in as he flanked Louis’ other side, copying their extremely low volume so his voice (at least) didn’t bounce around the dark, empty halls. “But we’re going to stay close to you. Someone’s gotta watch your blind spot,” he reasoned, his wild black hair looking the saddest it ever had, considering dedicated styling hadn’t been an option in his schedule for quite some time.

“No, I don’t want you getting distracted by anything—you need to focus on your own enemies,” Louis chided, humbled by the offer of protection but hesitant to accept such help; anything that could end bad would never be endorsed by him. Not in a situation _this_ grim.

“I’ll look after them,” Harlock added, proving their conversation was nowhere close to private since he was several creatures behind them. He made his way behind Louis with Jenner at his side and continued his vow, understanding exactly what the King was thinking—he’d thought the same. “Look, we are going to be somewhat around you whether you like it or not. Because we’re a family. What’s the point in running off to fight random predators when we’re in the eye of this storm? This is personal for all of us, and you can’t expect everyone to just leave you alone—”

“Yeah, but this fight is mine—” Louis began, allowing himself to get cut off because he knew Harlock was bringing up good points.

“That fight is, but the battle’s not. Our fight is with Auron and Azazel as much as yours is. Ask Martin and Tanner that, they’ll tell you the same,” he said, looking over his left shoulder to catch the two mentioned vampires walking close to the cobweb-covered windows.

“My ribs are vying for vengeance,” Tanner muttered to credit Harlock’s remark, only able to make light of that traumatic situation because if he’d never ever forced himself to, he wouldn’t have come back from it.

“Hadrian would destroy all of you,” Louis said, feeling a twinge of guilt for knocking them so far down, but the importance to drill that into them was apparently crucial.

“Louis, you’re misreading our intentions here,” Erakus said, redirecting Louis’ attention back to him. “We never said we were joining. We said we’re intentionally stationing ourselves at a decently safe distance from the twins, but still _close_ to you. Close enough to rush over and do something if need be. Just in case,” he said, raising his brows expectantly to hear Louis’ response.

Louis looked back and everyone else and saw the same faces of determination on all he cared for, realizing they never would have stayed away if he’d begged them to. It was irrational to ask them to ignore him on the battlefield, and he gets that, but still… “Just be more careful than you think you have to be. If you have to go after someone, make it Auron, but don’t even do that unless it’s a last and final result. And don’t leave yourselves open for outside attacks...and don’t—”

“Alexander,” Cináed called with a clearing of his throat, tired of listening to his fretful stutters. “Trust in your circle of creatures. I don’t think they need to be told how to fight in a battle. I wouldn’t expect any of them to stand uselessly and let themselves be slain. Come on,” he urged, snapping Louis out of his nearly parental worrying.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Louis said to Cináed and his vampires respectively, politely removing his hand from Marley’s and crossing his arms over his chest. “There’s just a lot to go wrong. I always hate this part,” he sighed, thinking back to all the times he’d gone into battle with Hephaestion at his side and no reassurance he’d _come back_ with Hephaestion. It was a wretched pre-battle fear.

So many battles, and so many comrades lost along the way were bringing up fears Louis hadn’t felt in a long time. He hadn’t found much to care about after turning except Hadrian, and he’d never been worried about losing him. As the years dragged on, it was less and less common to find a vampire they weren’t older than, and that made them feel invincible.

Obviously Auron had put a damper on that, but even so, that had been _him_ to die, not Hadrian. And though Louis worried for Hadrian now, he knew he needn’t. Azazel was clearly far too obsessed with those twins to ever hurt them; though Hadrian was in a bad place, he didn’t know it, and it didn’t negatively affect him. He’d be fine.

Louis’ friends, however, his _best, closest, most meaningful_ friends couldn’t have the same said for them. They were walking into a situation with unforeseeable outcomes, just like the human Alexander’s circle of warriors were for every war they’d chosen to engage in, and he hadn’t felt this specific fear _since_ those ancient days. In conclusion, it was not a welcome comeback.

“This way, please,” Anatoly said to break the tension that had fallen, hanging back and letting everyone take the ninety-degree right turn before him. “There, at the end of the hall,” he said, regardless of whether or not everyone could already hear the voices from within.

Louis stayed in his line order, walking soundlessly with the grace he always carried (that Hadrian couldn’t harness if he tried), and then squinted into a candlelit sea of bodies stuck in a multipurpose room of shadowy and creepy conditions. “Wait a second,” he said upon getting a complete look around the chatting room (though they were starting to look over), scratching at his head in confusion. “Why are there humans in here?” he whispered, pointing to the sizable group of set-minded and determined mortals behind the group of up-front vampires.

“To even shit out,” Michael said into his ear, giving the room his back to mute his sound even more. “Those are human fighters. Auron will have humans as well, believe me. They’ll be under lures. They’ll be used as a distraction because we assume any Guardian would lay their life down to save one. If not, at least get too sidetracked if one is thrown at them. They’ll fumble in their efforts not to kill it, and that’s when we’d strike. I expect it’s this group’s job to protect those zombies and try to get them to safety during the battle so they don’t become the fodder they’re intended to be,” he guessed, glancing over at Anatoly and staring hard until he got a wary and guarded nod.

“That’s correct,” Anatoly muttered just as quietly, side-eyeing Michael like he was a time-bomb and then turning to address his forces. “My beings!” he called, turning everyone’s eyes which had all landed on the originals.

 _Yeah,_ Louis said in his judgmental head, understanding their dumbfounded expressions. _They’re better than you’ll ever be. Get used to it._

“Yes. As you can see, we’ve acquired quite the asset,” the leader continued in reference to the nine scary creatures with the newcomers, seeming to assure the speechless faces of the Guardians they were, in fact, not dreaming. “These are the siblings of the predators’ secret weapon. Without them, according to Julius, we would have been crushed on the spot. Now, we stand a chance,” he said, subtly flicking his eyes to Julius to see if that claim was actually worth putting weight in.

Julius was just about to respond when a member of the crowd jumped up onto a table, pointing an accusatory finger at their group and barking out a blaring, “Is that Michael Stonewall?!”

A collective gasp shuddered through the Guardians and eyes frantically searched for the owner of that iconic name, fangs baring the moment each vampire found him stood awkwardly by Alexander’s side.

“Unbunch your panties, I can explain,” Michael snapped, skillfully catching a dagger as it was hurled toward his face. “Watch it!” he cried, flipping the weapon in his palm to grip the handle and throw it right back into the congregation of Guardians.

“That will _not_ help your case, you imbecile!” Louis hissed, snatching the blade away and pocketing it beside Auron’s in his jeans and dragging Michael by the sleeve of his leather jacket to the small stage at the front of the room. “I’m Alexander the Great, and you will let him explain!” he commanded to the Guardians, his infamous name earning the automatic respect it always did.

“Thanks,” Michael muttered, rolling his eyes just to make it abundantly clear he wasn’t the least bit grateful for the King’s degrading ‘help.’ “My maker, most of you know him as Bastion, is under a lure and not himself,” he began, glaring at the extra voice he heard until he realized it was a Russian Guardian translating his words for the non-English speakers. “This makes him my current enemy,” he continued, talking slower so the translator would have enough time to get his message across. “I’m your ally until I get him back, then we can go back to killing each other like normal.”

Louis dropped his head down and slapped a hand to his hairline, amazed Michael could be so dense that he’d threaten the very group he was trying to ally himself with.

“We should accept this?” a red-haired female Elder balked, her growling accent making her sound more dangerous than she looked. “We should kill him now!” she cried, eliciting a near instantaneous mob-mentality as the Guardians squawked like angry blue jays.

“ _Quiet_!” Louis bellowed, silencing the impressionable group without the need for their leader’s intervention. “He may have worded that like a fucking idiot, but—”

“I can help,” Michael blurted, unknowingly saving Louis’ shaky confidence because he hadn’t known where he was going to go with his defense.

“How?” that same female pressed, narrowing her eyes in distrusting suspicion.

“I can find out exactly when they’re gonna be here. Down to the second hand on the clock. You can’t tell me that’s not helpful,” he said with a calm and collected expression, watching faces turn thoughtful after the interpreter had uttered the last bit of his testimony.

“How would we know you would even come back?” a thin-nosed male speculated, mirroring the same doubtful slits for eyes which everyone present was displaying.

“Looks like you’ll just have to see and find out,” Michael sneered, appalled he was naturally assumed to go against his word. He may be many things, but a flake was not one of them.

“You don’t think Auron has put word out for your head after that fight?” Louis asked under his breath, scooting closer to Michael so they could better privately communicate.

“I’m not the only one with anger over what’s happened,” Michael replied, waggling his eyebrows at Alexander’s little ‘oh’ face.

“That settles it, then,” Louis said in a louder voice, daring anyone to keep challenging the topic because they’d only be holding up the needed proceedings. “Leave the moment you’re ready to, and come back with that news,” he ordered, also daring Michael to puff his chest out. They could bicker later.

“Understood,” Michael quipped, strolling back into the thick of their group so he didn’t feel so much like he was under a microscope in the sunlight. 

“We also have,” Louis continued, gesturing to Agnes and beckoning her forward. The witch smiled and waddled up to him, turning to the Guardians and slightly curtsying to greet them as a whole. “A witch. Who can bring powerful covens to our cause. The enemy forces have been confirmed to have witches and warlocks working for them, so she will be a great asset against those silent killers. Any objections?” he asked, taking over the meeting entirely because they were the vampires who actually got shit done in the world.

“None here,” Anatoly chimed, still the leader of the Siberian troops, whether he’d stepped back or not. Suggestions need only go through him.

“Agnes,” Louis addressed expectantly, asking her to go ahead and call them forth.

“Step back,” Cináed said, walking across the front row and pushing the chests of every member in line, dragging Louis back into the group when everyone had sufficiently scooted away from the stage.

Agnes took a few moments of silence before beginning her inexplicable joint-call with the world’s righteous and well-intended covens, stealing the entire room’s attention because they either weren’t used to seeing a witch in action, or were confused as to how and why she was pregnant whilst romantically involved with a vampire. If Louis had to guess, he’d say it was both.

Then the great God, Zeus, said, “Let there be warlocks,” and there they were. Jenner screeched through his nose and spasmed to hide behind Harlock, his tiny frame shaking in fear to see so many magicals near Agnes’s skill level in one place, and Louis reached out to pat him on the shoulder.

It wasn’t just Jenner, though—most of the Guardians in the room collectively backed up a few paces, and gasps were heard from every corner of the room. Some from the gust of wind that had accompanied their appearance, some from knowledgeable worry. Seasoned magicals weren’t creatures to fuck with.

Though they had made such a grand entrance, there were only twenty or so magical creatures present, and Michael groaned in disappointment, indiscreetly coughing so he would be in their sights. “This isn’t nearly enough,” he said, speaking most directly to Agnes since he _kind of_ knew her. Not really, but she’d touched his face once.

“Is it not?” Agnes replied, gesturing to the coven leaders behind her, who had all crossed their arms and were glaring at Michael in offense.

“You said you were bringing covens. That’s the kind of numbers Auron will have with him. He’ll have a _lot_ of warlocks and witches. This is…” He paused, quickly counting the number of bodies behind the pregnant witch, “...twenty-four. You think that will stand against the hundred or so against us?”

“These are coven _leaders_ , Michael. Allow me to explain,” Agnes began, immediately cut off by one of the only two other females in the group, who rushed up to pass her and speak down into Michael’s doubting face.

“Useless swine, those are,” the first girl said, her dark chestnut hair bouncing around as her green eyes shone in anger. “No magicals of substance would work for the dead,” she sneered, obviously referring to vampires with the ‘dead’ comment.

“Evelyn,” the second girl murmured to appease Evelyn’s hot-tempered attitude, coming up beside her to reiterate what she’d essentially _meant_ to say. “The covens have a bad history with vampires. We do not bend to their will, and we never would, no matter the benefit or prize. Warlocks who would stoop to being errand magicians are pests to us—pests undeserving of the gift whom we’d seek to exterminate,” she explained calmly, her words contradictory enough to her actions that Louis had to address it.

“Sorry, but...what’s your name?” the King asked first, trying to show vampires could be polite and personable. This blonde and blue-eyed girl looked all-around nicer than Evelyn, at half a foot shorter with innocent-looking freckles high on her cheeks. Even just from their body language and spared glances, Louis could tell these two witches were a couple, and it made them more interesting to him. Two coven leaders? Together? _That’s a strong alliance._

“Molly,” she said with a genuine smile, proving just how different she was from her apparent lover.

“Okay Molly,” Louis corrected, trying to reciprocate the cordial politeness she’d displayed. “Aren’t you here now?” he reasoned, referring to their alleged aversion to vampires and how that hadn’t stopped them from coming when called to fight their battle.

“We didn’t do it for _you_ , we did it for Agnes Waterhouse,” Evelyn sneered, silencing herself when Molly held up a patient but stern hand.

“We answered the call of Anges because we think this a worthy cause to direct our efforts to. We, as the Guardians do, wish to live separate and hidden from the human world. Though vampires are no friends of ours, we see the difference between the predators and their enemies. Predators are worse—no question. If there is a side seeking to ruin the world, and that private peace we strive to uphold, and a side seeking to stop that plot, we’re going to align ourselves with the side which shares our values. And that’s you,” she finished, backed by the nods of those behind her, even a grudging one from Evelyn.

“Welcome, then,” Anatoly greeted, bowing though he would probably consider himself a superior to them.

“Yeah, but Auron has powerful warlocks with him too. I’m just saying don’t expect all of them to be foot soldiers. I’ve met plenty that scare even me,” Michael stressed, still considering the uneven amount of magical forces a gigantic problem.

“We’ll cut them down,” a earthy-skinned warlock assured, his confidence hard to argue, even in the face of potential disadvantage.

“If you say so,” Michael sighed, deciding to leave the warlock/witch business to themselves and just hope he wouldn’t be cut down by one of them in the process, from _either_ side.

“Let us converse—time is of the essence,” Agnes said to her gathered magicals, using Anatoly’s helpful guidance to lead her group to some adjacent room and start formulating their battle plan.

“Well...guess I’d better go,” Michael said to Louis’ dazed form, snapping him from his thoughts as their eyes met.

“You’ll be careful?” Louis asked, finding it odd he cared about the vampire’s fate at all; he was an asset to learn the predators’ schedule, yes, but the fact of the matter was, Louis knew his care went deeper than that. He was concerned for Michael himself, not the intel he could provide. _Gross._

“No, I’m actually _vying_ to get myself killed,” Michael sassed, leaning into the hand on his hip while he gestured wildly with his other one.

Louis shot him a look of nonexistent amusement, snorting once before huffing, “Just get out of here.”

Michael smiled and punched Alexander’s shoulder as he stepped away, giving hugs to Lauren and Lawrence and then throwing a wave up just before exiting through the door—exiting to go storming into the enemy lines. Technically those his _own_ lines, but recent events had put him at odds, and now most of them were a danger to him. How the tables turn.  

Louis watched him go and tutted his tongue when he disappeared, his thoughts taking him straight to the Roman twins while the room was still engrossed in a hundred different conversations at once. _No._ Hadrian and Auron were far too stressful to think about in public, so he changed his tune, deciding to worry about them later when he had the time. Seeing as he was busy ignoring his main concerns, he figured he might as well vampire-watch to guarantee his continued distraction.

The originals (void of Cináed since he’d followed the magicals) stuck to themselves by the door, causing most of the room’s whispers and stares, and Louis could only assume the subject of their identity would come up soon. They were a scary mystery, indeed. His lovely bus squad were to the side of the little stage, huddled together in their couplings, save for Harlock, who stood sulking by himself, and everyone else he’d met along the way were off in their own worlds.

Louis smiled at Harlock’s pouting and approached him, bumping into him to get his attention and grinning when Harlock’s one eye narrowed in pretend irritation. “Jenner wanted independence?” he guessed, knowing that was at least a possibility coming from the Cromwell.

“I’m sure, but that’s not it,” Harlock chuckled, turning his gaze to the sea of chatty Guardians among them. “It was more that the warlocks couldn’t refuse Cináed’s company...for many reasons. Me, they could refuse,” he muttered, clearly attempting to come to terms with that so he didn’t sound so bratty.

“You? The infamous, _fabled_ pirate, Harlock? Captain of all our hearts? How could you ever be refused?” Louis gasped, dodging the kick he’d seen coming since he first chose to open his mouth.

“You shut your fucking mouth, your Highness,” Harlock chided without real bite, turning his head along with said Princess when Anatoly reemerged from his tour-guiding duties.

“Извините!” the technical leader called to quiet the room; rather politely, too, considering Louis would probably shout ‘Заткнись’ in his position. In other words, demand them to shut up instead of requesting their attention. “So,” he began with a conclusive clap of his palms, waiting the half second it took for the translator to speak the Russian equivalent. “Here’s what we’re going to do...”

 

~~~

 

“You seem almost...worried,” Hadrian noted, shoving both hands under his cheek as he rolled to face Auron in bed.

“I'm…” Auron trailed, his eyes boring holes into his own lap as he slumped against the headboard. “I'm…”

“Not worried about me, are you? The battle? We can take them, mirror. You've gotta know that,” Hadrian said, his brows coming together as he cluelessly studied Auron’s demeanor.

“Not of the battle’s danger,” Auron said to get that theory out of the way, narrowing down just what it was he felt uneasy about. “I mean...we have Azazel. We can't lose with that. There's just something else I feel could happen. It's not even death, it's just…”

Hadrian flinched when his brother snarled and hissed out of nowhere, having not anticipated it, and he sat up to hook an arm around Auron’s back when he fell forward and folded himself in half. “Auron...I don't know what to say. It's probably nothing—”

“Do you feel nothing? It's not nothing,” Auron vehemently asserted, leaning into his younger brother before he could push away and take it out on him instead.

“Okay, it's something,” Hadrian accepted, nodding slowly like he was appeasing some bank robber with a drawn gun and shaking arm. “But is it worthy of your concern?”

“I can't tell,” Auron laughed, going a bit off the rails as he hid himself in Hadrian’s chest, shoulders jumping with silent laughter over the cutting torment of mystery stress.

Hadrian pulled the corner of his bottom lip between his teeth and gnawed on it worriedly, throwing his other arm around Auron and setting his chin atop his hair. “I’ll keep you safe, Auron. Nothing is taking me from you, or vice-versa. Alright? Together, we’re unstoppable,” he said, getting a good grip on his brother and flipping him over his own body to slam him into the opposite side of the mattress.

“Excuse you,” Auron snorted, squeaking when Hadrian tightened his hold like he was trying to squish the troubles right out from his pores.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Hadrian grunted, considering his work done and hopping up on an elbow to stare Auron down. “I swear.”

“No swearing; Mother wouldn’t like it,” Auron scolded, making the exact angry face their mother used to pelt them with whenever they were out of line.

“I miss Mother sometimes,” Hadrian confessed, eyes flicking over to a portrait of a lakeside landscape as he tried to bring her all the way back into his mind...confused because he couldn’t. “What ever happened to her?” he asked, astounded he didn’t have an immediate answer for such a question.

“She wasn’t immortal like us; that’s what happened to her,” Auron said, his face freezing because he could have sworn he knew a lot more than that, but nothing came to him. “Father too. We just lost them,” he said, knowing that part was true no matter what the ‘how’ happened to be. It had been centuries since then. They’d obviously died at some point.

“Would they be proud of us, do you think?” Hadrian mused, swiveling around so he was lying the wrong way on the bed with his ankles crossed on his pillow.

“You, maybe,” Auron replied at once, his closest hand curling around Hadrian’s foot and sliding it up to trace his anklebone.

“Not you?” Hadrian inquired, lifting his head off the duvet to meet Auron’s amused eyes.

“Hm. I think they’d tell me I was getting ahead of myself…” Auron said, recalling how much harder their parents had been on him than Hadrian. Even if they’d committed the same mischievous deed, as the eldest, Auron had always been blamed. Hadrian had always been perfect to them, infallible, incapable of mistakes or character flaws. Auron understood—Hadrian was perfect to him too.

“And are you?” Hadrian prompted, sitting up once again and taking Auron’s face in his hands. “It’s just a fight in Siberia, Auree. Just a little battle. Nothing more,” he stressed, holding Auron’s hair out at either side to make him look like a flower. “You’ve led armies, my love. This will pale by comparison.”

“I’d like to believe you,” Auron assured, removing himself from the bed only to turn the corner lamp off and hop back with a dive under the covers.

“Then do it. Believe me. It’ll be fine,” Hadrian pledged, taking his rightful place under Auron’s arm and splaying himself out on his silent chest. Neither felt the need to change that—blood was the furthest thing from their minds tonight.   

“Alright, Hayway. My little mirror,” Auron sighed, snaking both arms around Hadrian’s head to hold him close while they eventually slept the day away—the last day of peace. “You and I are forever, and we can’t be bested. So, I believe you. No matter what may come, come it may.”

Hadrian grinned in the dark and snuggled up closer, relieved Auron had allegedly surpassed his momentary nervousness regarding the upcoming battle. He was right, after all. They really couldn't be bested. Anything to try would meet a sorry end. “Come it may.”

 

~~~

 

“I think you’ll find something in here,” Anatoly said, having led Louis to a door at the end of some hall when he inquired about weapons.

“Thank you,” Louis said with a polite nod, passing Anatoly as he held the door open and stepping into a room with a sky of chandeliers and a ground of deathly contraptions. Did he need a weapon? No. Did he want a sword for a battle anyway? He’s Alexander the Great, what do you think?

The door closed loudly behind him and he looked over his shoulder on instinct, the movement alerting him of the mirrors that covered the walls. He stared at himself in wonder, walking up to his reflection and placing a hand on the dusty glass. He studied every line of his face, finding it such a useless thing to have because it meant nothing to the only thing that mattered to him—Hadrian.

Hadrian would see this face, once again, and not have a clue what he was looking at. He could stare into his eyes and still try to kill him. He has already. Without Hadrian loving him, Louixander was nothing. He’s not special—he’s not powerful—he’s just another fighter in the mix. Just another face to cut down on the twins’ way to victory.

But he wouldn’t let them. He refused to die at their hands as a stranger. If Auron was going to kill him, he would do it knowingly, but he knew that wouldn’t happen either. Fighting both twins at once (because he’s just sure they’re going to fight as an inseparable dream team) was going to be a pain in his ass, and it was all he could think about as he pulled his chosen sword from its rack and held it out in front of him. Those Aeliuses; they wouldn’t let up for a second...but neither would he.

 

\---

 

Erakus and Marley sat along the far wall watching Louixander go to town swinging a sword around. It wasn’t mere swinging—he clearly knew how to wield one—but that was the extent of his practices. Erakus guessed he only wanted one in his hands for old time’s sake; they weren’t exactly the most useful in a battle like this. Of course, some of the humans had guns on them, so this would be interesting.

The original and added squad had all slept together in a single room with blankets strewn around the floor like children at a sleepover, and waking up had been a simultaneous act as Anatoly rattled on the door at sundown. They’d taken some time to get out of either bed or blanket heap, but Louixander had leapt from his position and demanded to be taken into an arsenal, and they’d filed in a while later.

The Sparrow entwined the fingers of his hand with his husband’s, sinking down against the mirror and holding his appendage with more tension than he may normally. He couldn’t help it—the weight of potential mishaps were suffocating the group. Everyone could feel it. Battles were never for sure victories, no matter the advantages and setbacks; and no side walked away unscatched. No, not even they could.

“Any tighter and you’re gonna take my hand with you,” Marley teased with his comforting Australian accent, situating himself until he could throw his legs over Erakus’s lap and scoot in closer.

“Sorry,” Erakus mumbled, dropping Marley’s hand to take his face instead, brushing the hair from his face before he leaned in for a kiss.

“Disgusting,” Kaisa and Susanna said at the same time, pointing at each other and giggling like twins.

“We’re married; get over it,” Erakus said with a roll of his eyes, his statement ironically making the situation worse.

“Yeah! And guess who didn’t get to _go_ to that wedding?” the eldest, Susanna, balked, evidently planning to harbour this grudge for the rest of her existence.

“There wasn’t any time,” Erakus defended, eyes jumping to Louis when he let out a roar and took a swing of the sword in his hands toward a defenseless table. _Seems he’s having fun…_

“Girls, we talked about this,” Veronica chastised, shutting her husband up when he tried to speak. “We will have another, bigger wedding when this is over.”

“Yeah, so don’t die,” Elijah muttered, his eyes dark and worried while Niko appeased the locked muscles in his shoulders, digging in with his elbows to tackle his proof of stress.

“That would put a damper on the plan,” Niko added, sending a breezier wink to the middle brother and putting all his confidence into where he actually lacked it.

“Relax, no one is going to die,” Erakus stated with conviction, his drive to believe himself meeting a swift end when Max made a doubtful hum.

“You sure about that?” the _original_ original of this mission taunted, jutting his chin toward Øvind who lay perpendicular to him with his head upon his thighs. “I can’t even guarantee this one’s safety and I think I might be addicted to the inside of his body.”

A metallic clash on the floor startled the majority of the vampires in the arsenal and all eyes flew to the source, spotting Louis standing frozen with a mixture of amusement and discomfort stuck on his face. “That actually happened?” he asked tonelessly, bending down to retrieve his sword when he finally realized he’d dropped it.

“In what world would it have not?” Max replied, his fingers idly playing with Øvind’s hair as his half-breed dweller marinated in embarrassment. “Not this one, I’ll tell you that.”

“Mazel Tov!” Ezra cried with a short burst of solitary applause, eliciting a legendary raise of Max’s left eyebrow.

“Oh, he’s adorable,” Lotta rasped with shining eyes, quietly chuckling with Kyösti beside the unlikely coupling of Max and Øvind.

“Quite so,” Kyösti agreed, tapping the papery skin of his wife’s hand like any elderly sweethearts would.

“He is not. He’s an idiot. You can’t just congratulate people for fucking, Ez,” Astair scoffed, feeling the secondhand shame for him in ample amounts. He used to fuck that.

“There you go, dictating how I live my life,” Ezra snarled to his ex-boyfriend (for good reason), their gazes connecting and stirring up an invisible shower of acid rain that pelted their heads. “And don’t call me ‘Ez.’ You lost that right decades ago, you sad, _sad_ excuse for a—”

“Boys,” Liam snapped with a contradicting smile, motioning them to sit down since both had shot up like overnight bean stalks in the ground. “Later,” he said, pushing the height of Johnny’s hair down to make eye contact with the both of them.

The squabbling pair reluctantly sat and kept their lingering glares silent, still permeating the air with an awkwardness that even the humans had trouble breathing in. Later indeed.

“Any more fights that need having?” Louis snorted as he moved onto using two swords at once, debating the efficiency of actually bringing the double-trouble to the field.

“Yeah, I’ve got something,” Jenner piped, wracking an immediate groan of exasperation from his one-eyed lover.

“Jenner, not this again—”

“This entire time, I’ve been preparing myself for this. Practicing with Agnes. You never barred me from it before, and you decide it the second we wake up? You can’t make me stay here,” he bit, letting out his earlier frustrations that had stayed dormant earlier for a peaceful breakfast.

“I most certainly can. You’re not fighting this battle, Jenner,” Harlock huffed, reaping what he’d sowed by forbidding Jenner to join the fight. He’d known this was coming—but he’s not backing down.

“The fact that you’re even trying is hilarious,” Jenner seethed, only losing a sliver of his boldness when Harlock let out a warning hiss in his face.

“Jenner, stay here,” Agnes said, effecting a look of utter betrayal on Jenner’s face until she finished her thought: “I’m not going either.”

That foreseeably shocked nearly every creature in the room, but none felt stronger about it than Cináed.

“You’re not?” Cináed asked with a soft tone and a racing pulse, sounding timid as though he didn’t want to believe it yet in case there was some sort of catch.

“No,” Agnes confirmed, looking around at the speechless faces of her company before meeting the ones of her love. “I thought a lot about it. I’m confident in my abilities, and I know I would be an asset...but our baby is something I cannot jeopardize. I have called upon the covens and retrieved the strongest, so...I feel alright with sitting this out,” she said, promptly looking away when the beginnings of tears gathered in Cináed’s eyes.

“Thank you,” Cináed breathed, sinking down to lay flat on the floor and throw his arms around Agnes’s hips, furiously kissing her midsection and shamelessly crying in relief. He never would have stopped her, because no matter how dominant he is, Agnes Waterhouse cannot be controlled, but he’d been unspeakably terrified of the dangers—it had felt like wide needles plunging into every inch of his body. Hearing she would stay in shelter was like a fifty-ton weight being taken off his back. The needles were out. He felt invincible now. “Thank you so much.”

Harlock gave Jenner a loaded look as the most powerful couple in the zamok sniveled together in the most vulnerable state of emotion anyone would ever see from them, but Jenner was still committed to his stubborn tendencies.

“ _I’m_ not pregnant,” the warlock remarked, crossing his arms in dwindling protest. He wanted to hold onto his wish, but the factors were rapidly stacking against him.

“Jenner Cromwell,” Harlock quipped, sounding and appearing as though he were a stick of lit dynamite and his little flare had climbed dangerously close to his frame.

“Harlock Lawson,” Jenner reciprocated, using the last of his resolve to serve a mirrored name-stating because he didn’t feel like letting that slide. He knew he’d lost at this point.

“Stay here, Jenner,” Agnes repeated, having concluded the temporary period of sniffling with her now floating lover.

Jenner let his shoulders slump and carded through his sunset curls, blowing a sigh through rounded lips before stating, “For _you_ ,” to Agnes with a point of his finger.

“It could be for the Easter bunny, I don’t give a fuck,” Harlock interjected, apparently flustered Jenner had specified who he was listening to—and that it wasn’t him.

“It’s for you too,” Jenner said sweetly, turning the charm on and raising onto his tiptoes to reach for a kiss.

“Yeah. Uh-huh,” Harlock deadpanned, squinting at Jenner suspiciously before giving in because kisses were hard to deny.

“What about us?” Niall asked Zayn, likely referring to Tanner and himself, and it caught Louis’ attention. _Good question._

“What do you want to do?” Zayn asked right back, meeting Martin’s eyes across from him and somewhat communicating by features what they would do with their baby vampires.

“I want to fight with Louis,” Niall stated, twisting around to get his friend in his peripherals, discovering he’d set the tips of both his swords onto the ground at his sides and was leaning onto the handles like they were a pair of Lofstrand crutches.

“Certainly not. Not—”

“Not your particular fight with the deadly Romans, no. But I can’t do _nothing_. I’ve come this far for this purpose,” the blonde reasoned, obvlious to the fact he might not want to use that logic—Jenner had also come this far for this reason.

“Yeah, and I got all my bones broken for this shit. I gotta get back at them somehow,” Tanner added, feeling the squeeze of Martin’s hand on his upper arm and knowing it meant he was proud...and probably sympathetic/regretful/guilty, but definitely proud.

“I’m not the one you need to be proposing all this to,” Louis said with his hands held up, catching his swords he’d released before they crashed to the floor and pointing both weapons to Zayn and Martin.

“Martin?” Tanner asked, both him and Niall turning around to face their immortal lovers.

“This is for the fate of the world—if you die, there are ways to take myself off this planet,” Martin replied, tucking Tanner’s brown ringlets (as if they would ever stay) behind his ear. Yeah, they bounced right back.

“Are there ways? Are there?” Aguta pried, smirking all too knowingly at the French ex-butler.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Aguta,” Louis drawled, whipping around to pierce the visibly impressed original with his cold gaze. “I find myself saying these types of statements in frightful abundance, because _none_ of you know the meaning of word ‘propriety,’ but for the last time, there is a time and a place for your mystery mumbles. Contain yourself,” he ordered, beyond vexed that Aguta seemed more fond than apologetic.

“You could not contain yourself under all our lures combined,” Utul chimed, breaking out of his usual silence to give his contribution to Alexander’s hypocrisy.

“Ooh, we should test that,” Aguta gasped, looking to Akna and Sukarno and stating the situation to them in Ualarhi to see if they were for it. Both siblings rolled their eyes and made him sort of contact (Akna with a slap upside the head, and Sukarno with a kick to the knee), so it would stand to reason they were not interested.

“My baby has plenty of restraint,” Stacey defended, her precious Jet nodding along whether she believed it or not. If any of these vampires had seen how withheld he’d had been with his father, they’d understand how much it really takes to reach her son’s boiling point.

“Maybe as Louis,” Zayn remarked, a heavy ‘but’ hanging off the end of his inflection. “This is Alexander.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Stacey grumbled, her ponytail swishing around to her opposite shoulder as she sought the Pakistani near the back corner of the room.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into all of this, Ma,” Louis said in a moment of guilt, grasping both sword handles in one hand and crossing the surprisingly polished floorboards to give his life-giver a one-armed hug.

“Sweetie, if your boyfriend hadn’t killed my husband, and I _wasn’t_ fighting a vampire war to save the world, I’d be in a bathroom putting makeup on a shiner. That’s...definitely not a sentence I ever thought I’d say,” she added, waiting until the chorus of chuckles subsided to finish her point. “What I mean to say is you dragged me into nothing, Loulou. You saved me, baby. You saved me,” she assured, passing his swords off to Jet so they could share a proper hug.

“I love you, Mom,” Louis sighed into Stacey’s homey-smelling neck, relieved beyond measure she was indeed out of that house, even if that meant pure chaos from every angle. “You were my lighthouse throughout this lifetime. You too, Niall,” he added over his shoulder just to include his best friend—high school wouldn’t have been the same without him. “And it was your face I saw after the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“You’d’ve found your way back to Harry,” Stacey said surely, well aware she had been a piece in Alexander’s grand plan to return to his long lost love, and had she been unavailable, he would have utilized another.

“Harry. My ‘ _boyfriend_ ,’ isn’t that right?” he teased, lightly scratching at his mother’s back to tickle her as he stepped out of their embrace.

“Oh whatever. Your ever-eternal soulmate. You know what I mean,” Stacey huffed with a grin, booping her son on the nose before taking a seat on the bench against the only wall without a full-length mirror.

“I just want to say...all of you...please be careful,” Louis said to his family, meeting each pair of eyes as though it was the last time. For all he knew, for some, it could be.

“Of course, Louis. Don’t worry about us. You have a big task,” Marley said, blowing a kiss to the King when he looked over at the sound of his voice. 

“You’ll never get anything done if you’re busy worrying about all of us,” Erakus added, absentmindedly spinning his wedding ring around on his finger.

“We’re going to try our best to get him distracted as soon as possible,” Max said, easily being the most supportive original of the bunch. He’d grown to care for his baby idiots, and he didn’t necessarily want any of them to perish at the hands of vampires under Azazel’s control—he’d caused enough wreckage in his reign. It was high time for a new age.

“I know. I know you will. We got this, yeah?” Louis said to boost morale, all potential hollers of agreement swallowing back down everyone’s throats as a familiar scent made a rather loud entrance into the zamok and screamed in Russian as it raced toward their location in the arsenal. “That must be Michael,” he muttered in acceptance, facing the closed door because he knew it would open soon; he couldn’t decipher Michael’s Russian words from all the commotion he was precipitating throughout the castle, but he didn’t have to worry about that long. Michael was in the room now.

“We—” Michael gasped to Louis’ expectant face upon entering a room full of metal weapons, the borrowed blood he’d taken on his journey inhibiting his working lungs, “—we have fifteen minutes.”

It wasn’t panic that followed his words, but action. Prompt and wordless action. Louis fastened a harness over his shoulder and sheathed his extra sword so he could have it at his back if needed, and he simply held the other one—he’d need at least one at all times. Michael had run out the second he’d delivered the news, and Anatoly’s voice could be heard booming commands to organize the noble Guardians.

Louis could practically hear his heartbeat thumping in his ears, and that was ridiculous because his heart wasn’t beating at all, but the feeling was still there. He and his group filed out of the room as though practicing a school fire drill, and stalked down the hall toward the foyer to lead the way to the decided location with Michael. He could only assume the unconventional predator had that kind of knowledge.  

Out of all the things he could say to his friends, no words seemed to make any sense. In turn, no one said a thing, simply aligning themselves near the front door as the Siberian Guardians pooled out from the ballroom.

In his peripherals, he could Liam furiously hugging Johnny, Harlock in the same position with Jenner, and Cináed standing forehead to forehead with Agnes. It all felt suspiciously reminiscent of the wars he’d fought as a human: lovers saying goodbye. He’d watched a lot of families torn apart from battles he’d led, and he really hoped history wouldn’t repeat itself as egregiously as those examples. If he hadn’t had Hephaestion with him to convince him he shouldn’t shoulder all the guilt of his people’s grief, he would have succumbed to it.

 _I’d like you here with me, Hephaestion,_ he thought to his first ever love, staring up at the vaulted ceiling of the zamok living room as bodies rushed past him in a flurry. It might have been odd to wish for Hephaestion when his current life revolved around another, but it was less weird than it seemed—no one had served as a greater partner in battle than him. No two people had saved each other more times than Hephaestion and Alexander. Ask Aristotle.

_“My children, you defy my logics. You cannot be explained with any words I, or any of we Greeks, possess. You ascend the meaning of singularity. You are one soul abiding in two bodies.”_

Aristotle’s words from that sunny morning of training had rung so clear in Louis’ mind that his old teacher could have been in the room, and he nearly dropped to his knees from the weight of the epiphany they brought with them. One soul. Two bodies. Can it be true? It was...he _knew_ it was. “Why didn’t I see it before?” he asked himself, unaware he’d actually used his vocal words to expose his musings.

“Louis?” Harlock asked, sensing the odd tone in the King’s murmur and turning his head to meet his multi-coloured eyes.

Louis jolted like he’d been slapped and gripped his sword tighter, straightening his spine and taking a deep breath. “Nothing, it’s just—” he began mysteriously, his gaze falling to Harlock’s collar because he couldn’t focus within eye contact. “I’ve known Hadrian a lot longer than I thought I did...”

“What?” Harlock asked, wondering if he’d heard that correctly. Known Hadrian? Longer than when? What?

“Let’s go!” Michael called, orchestrating with the added efforts of Anatoly, Lauren, and Lawrence to configure everyone in place and get this started. “This way,” he said, opening the door of the zamok and stepping out into the snow.

Then they were off.

Louis walked to the field in a daze, his every thought nailed to the deeper understanding he’d acquired in the span of a blink. It was something he’d never considered—and it was obvious as all fuck. Hadrian is Hephaestion. He always was, always has been, and always will be.

Louis is Alexander. He always was, always has, and always will be.

Alexander and Hephaestion. Hadrian and Alexander. Louis and Harry. All the same two people. _The same fucking people._ It was just them. From the beginning, and until the end, there would never be anything else but... _them_.

As sidetracked as he was by this incredible discovery, it helpfully snapped him into the needed battle mode like a bear-trap on his heart. He was now more focused than ever before, and he walked with his head high, prepared to do anything this world would need from him to get his soulmate back. There was no other option, and no other outcome; this game of Azazel’s would end and it would end tonight.  

Before he knew it, the entire coalition had slowed to a halt, lining themselves up as any army would and prepping their weapons. He looked around and studied the traits of the place where he’d get his heart back in his hands. They’d come to a long stretch of snowy bank up on ground level from the canyon of the zamok, several kilometres away from the quadrant mountains which boxed it in, with a frozen lake to their left, and thick forests of white pine to their right.

The magicals had taken up their positions hidden in the trees, actually doing a fair job because Louis couldn’t readily see them even with his eyes, and the humans had been put in the back of their body count of two-hundred or so. Louis’ bus squad and friends had subconsciously fitted themselves into the frontlines with Anatoly and Julius’s best, and the only beings ahead of them were the originals, evenly spaced and exuding all the confidence anyone lacking could put their faith in.

They were a dangerous bunch. And it _needed_ to be enough.

Louis had an impulse and walked along the row of his closest vampires, spending the remainder of their time embracing them just in case. He started with Erakus and Marley, whispering words of encouragement and receiving the same, then moved onto the Sparrows, even sparing a quick one-armed hug for Øvind.

Next was his own mother and her lover, then Liam, Astair and Ezra (who were, unsurprisingly, holding hands through their “hatred”), Tanner in all his glory, and the ever-respectable Harlock. He gripped his favourite pirate close and squeezed his eyes shut as he prayed for his livelihood. Fate couldn’t take him from Jenner. It couldn’t.

Following them could only be Zayn and Martin, the two members of the first trio of vampires he’d ever seen as a human—only absent of Harry. He held them simultaneously, holding the backs of their heads to his neck and ruffling their hair as they sighed in identical octaves. He spared them each a smile as he pulled away and yanked Niall into his chest, the best friends with impossible and unpredictable lives kissing each other’s cheeks and digging into skin with their nails.

“Be careful,” Niall whispered, tears in his eyes when they separated.

Louis reached up to hold his cheek, nodding solemnly as he wiped a tear from the blonde’s pained face. “You too, Ni. _Please_. You too.”

With that out of the way, Louis strutted to his chosen spot two steps ahead of his family, dead-center in-between Cináed and Max, and his ears perked as Max glanced to his European brother and asked a hilariously ill-timed question.

“Do you think Azazel will remember my name?”

Cináed rolled his eyes and scoffed in disapproval, and Louis couldn’t help his amused snort, his head dropping to quietly laugh toward his feet. He treasured the smile he could still make in that particular moment, on the precipice of pure dissonance, and it’s a good thing he did, because the next time he looked up, their enemies were there.

His lips parted in surprise and he immediately found Hadrian, flanking Azazel with Auron and licking his fangs in anticipation to fight all these “strangers.” Louis fought every thought he could dwell on and sized up their opponents, all stood menacingly thirty or so metres away and studying Louis’ group in the same way. The magicals who had zapped them here were absent from view, but Louis hadn’t expected to see them; he could only hope their own coven leaders would prove proficient in their disposal.

Azazel’s eyes were fixed on his siblings, and he didn’t look necessarily surprised, but there was an uneasiness to his expression. He was half-smiling with crossed arms, and clearly entertained, but his shifty eyes revealed his true concern. He seemed to understand the battle would not be won over as easily as he’d thought, and Louis couldn’t be happier about that. _Good. Be afraid, you snake._

Now that he’d assessed what they were dealing with, Louis’ eyes flicked back to Hadrian, beautiful as ever but utterly wrong. He hadn’t planned on making any kind of move, but when Hadrian’s surveying eyes fell onto his own and stayed there, the empty connection was too much to bear, and he unintentionally made the _first_ move. He hissed at his oblivious lover, pulled his extra sword from its sheath, let out a battle cry that ripped his throat apart, and ran straight for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck my entire life, Anatoly is my Ukrainian uncle hahaha. What can I say? He is pretty badass in real life.  
> Alright. Fuck, dudes. It's here. How are we feeling? Anxious as fuck? Idk, I am. And also...hmmm. You get the chapter title now. They are consistently stupid, but the most stupid ESPECIALLY tend to have the most meaning. Fuck. Alright. Imma go outside and smoke a cigarette while I edit this on my phone because ao3 adds spaces in-between italics. If you didn't know that, it's a fucking thing. Not when you paste it, mind you, only after you upload it. It may be google docs fucking that up somewhere, but gjdghejkf. It'll take me 15 minutes for this one, it's long as shit. Sucks. I may have publicly ranted about this before, but idk. Pointless to rant about it now anyway, cuz by the time you get to this, I'll have fixed them all already. I'm talking to a void again. See you next time.  
> AHA THE THING. >:O  
> Jax out.


	21. Too Soon to be Too Late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of fucking all, this is the latest shit I've ever fucking...I don't even know where to start. I'm wracked with guilt, but there's a few reasons. One is health issues, the other is life, another is more health stuff, some of it is reluctance to do the things in the chapter that I did, some of it is my perfectionism, and the rest of it was k-pop.  
> Sorry.  
> I will personally apologize to every single one of you for my lateness, I know it's very uncharacteristic of me, and I will try to never do it again.  
> Anyway, here's a warning for you in regards to me:  
> If you feel the need to comment at some point "you shoulda done ----" "why didn't you just----" "I don't like the fact that you----" "I feel like this ----- would have been better"  
> Please, just, kindly NOT. It is literally pointless, and it does nothing but make my eyes twitch in irritation. I understand opinions, but I would really suggest you go write your own story. I think you'll find that's where your personally creativity thrives. xD  
> Ahaha, I finally come back, and I'm an asshole hhaah JUST SAYING THO. Don't bring those comments in my box.  
> Lastly, this was a difficult thing to write, and yeah, shit happens, so be ready for it. Alright.

If Louis had ever thought time had slowed to a frame-by-frame showing at some point in his existence, this moment proved how fast-paced everything else had really been. He lived a lifetime in every second of his advance; the millimetres crept by like snails; it took a hundred years to take one commencing step.

That first step had propelled him into perfect alignment with the originals, but once even, they shot ahead, unmatched in speed to anything else on Earth. He stared at the back of Cináed, his first introduction into this maddening world he’d come to know, and prayed he would overcome the only power greater than his own. That battle was out of his hands now; he’d brought the siblings to one place, and now he had to let them be.

The nine originals came together into a tight-knit formation, determined to protect themselves from blind-spot attacks, and Azazel veered off to the right, shifting their course like a school of fish in the ocean. This placed all ten originals on the bank of the frozen river, and the start of their brawl sounded like endless claps of thunder; it made Louis want to look (whether he’d be able to see anything or not with their speed), but he resisted the urge either way, cutting everything out that wasn’t Hadrian and Auron.

The twins sprung into their sprint as well, eyes searching for the first victim as if Louis would let it be anyone besides him, and now both halves of the fight were yelling and running toward one another, irreversibly set on a one-way collision track with the fate of the world hanging somewhere in the middle.

His useless breathing probably sounded like he had a train engine for lungs in those last few strides, but all he could even hear was Aristotle’s words in his head: _“One soul abiding in two bodies.”_

The most ironic part of that was both Hadrian and himself were soulless. So, their split soul, wherever it may be, played no part of them anymore. And _yet_...and yet, the connection was just as strong without. Their minds, their love for one another, didn’t even need a soul to uphold its ground-breaking, dimension-defying significance.

It just was.

But right now, it certainly wasn’t.

Auron and Hadrian both changed their minds when they registered Azazel was off on his own, faced with so many near-equals, and they slid in the snow to alter their path, fear for their maker plain on both their faces.

Running into the fray of originals was perhaps the dumbest idea those twins could have had, and Louis was not going to let it happen. “Your opponent is me, Romans!” he roared, leaping diagonally to the left and landing right in the twins’ path.

Their blades swung down to quite literally cut Louis out of their way, but he wrenched his own swords up in an X to block the intention. The simultaneous force of both twins’ attacks made him flinch, but their facial expressions were much worse than the ache in his upper arms.

“Get the fuck out of our—”

“If you go there, you'll only die too!” Louis shouted incredulously, pushing back as hard as he could to nudge them away and get out of his defensive stance.

“What problem would you have with that?” Hadrian asked in a snarl, his eyes constantly switching from Louis to Azazel somewhere behind him.

“We don’t have _time_ for this,” Auron growled, grabbing the sleeve of Hadrian’s long-sleeve shirt to drag him around Louis as if he wasn’t a threat. “Azazel!”

“Did you not fucking hear me?” Louis snapped, sliding sideways to intercept them once more.

“Stay back, boys!” Azazel’s distant voice boomed, having paid attention and taken one second to glance at their situation after throwing Kazimir away from him and into the forest. “Kill that vampire!”

The twins’ eyes both shot from over Louis’ shoulder to his face, and he backed up a few paces, watching their arms lift their swords up and huffing at the mere inconvenience of this bullshit. “Fucking try it.”

And they did.

Their swords swung inward from both sides simultaneously, and only Louis’ superior age gave him the speed necessary to block one after the other. Under the pressure of that stressful moment, he discarded his extra weapon onto the snowy Earth beneath him (as it only added extra weight), and used both hands to throw the twins’ attempts in disarray. He knew the twins, though, and they wouldn’t be distracted for long—these twins were at precisely the level of dream-team he’d anticipated.

Reality was a blur as they quickly recovered and initiated their successive attacks, and Louis was put in a one-tracked zone of concentration. The only thing he knew now was that he needed to keep his opponents alive, but that was about the only rule he had on this fight. Serious maiming could be apologized for later.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Hadrian asked in the midst of walking the Guardian backward with sword clangs alongside his relentless brother. He and his twin were a formidable combination against anyone, and this Elder was no different; he was clearly struggling. He seemed _so_ familiar, though…

“I am _so sick_ of that fucking question! Never ask it again!” Louis roared, his anger serving as a shot of adrenaline which allowed him to finally gain footing and lead the twins back instead with overly powerful force behind his swings. “Yes! A million _fucking_ times!” he shrieked, rapidly kneeling to aim for their legs before they jumped up out of the way like fleas.

“Jerusalem...wasn’t it, dear brother?” Auron asked, memories flooding back that he hadn’t realized he’d forgotten. The Guardian scoffed at the naming of the place and shot forward again, kicking up snow behind him like some cartoon character, and only the combined efforts of him and Hadrian pushed him away before he could make contact.

“You stabbed me with a vase!” Hadrian accused, riling squared aggression from both Auron and the culprit.

“A _piece_ of vase, Hadrian,” Louis corrected, thinking it senseless to stab someone with an entire vase. “Need I remind you of my ankle?” he shot back, quickly and efficiently striking out with the leg attached to that very ankle to kick Hadrian in the same hip bone he’d vengefully broken in the dream.

“You need remind me of nothing,” Hadrian snarled, jumping up to amp the force of the downward swing with his sword.

“I need remind you of _everything_!” Louis stressed, simply sliding to the left to evade the attack instead of blocking it because his muscles were annoyed with him enough as is. “EVERYTHING!” he bellowed, throwing his lure into their eye contact while he kept his peripherals on the sneaky Auron. It had no noticeable effect, but he could only pray it made Azazel’s troubles worse. “ _Remember me._ ”

  


~~~

  


Azazel was stressed. It didn’t happen often, and when it did, it had to be something big. This counted. He could feel Alexander’s little claws scratching at the walls of his lure, and he didn’t have the time to devote all his attention to keeping it intact. Luckily the impudent brat wasn’t strong enough to tear it down, but his bothersome efforts weren’t helping Azazel’s control.

His siblings had paused to assess their strategy when Aguta had come close to death at his hands, and now they were stood in a circle around him, all eyes (even his once-close Cináed’s) squinted and looking for ways to kill him. To send him back to where they’d come from. His _family_ —imagine the pain of the betrayal in his heart. It felt like nine licks from the tongues of demons. “Why are you doing this?” he asked in Ualarhi (a language he had not used in far too long), spinning in a slow circle with an omniscient awareness of whoever he was putting behind him.

“You’re out of control,” Cináed answered in their native tongue, winning himself affronted eye contact with his only elder brother.

“I am?” Azazel laughed, staring his brother of Europe up and down like he could spot the evidence of hypocrisy on his clothing. “You think this was all my doing? I sat back and let my favourite child thrive. This was what he came up with. If you want to punish someone, be it him,” he said with a blank face; it might have sounded heartless, but he’d never let anyone hurt Auron either.

“Listen to yourself. As if you weren’t whispering into his ear the whole time,” Utul said with a roll of his eyes, fixing his shiny-smooth black hair while he had the time.

“You know what we were sent to do, Azazel,” Akna stated, her arms crossed as she drummed her claws on her upper arm. “And this wasn’t it. I tried to tell you once—you gave me this, remember?” she asked, making sure her skirt wasn’t blocking the view of her scarred thigh.

“You didn’t _tell_ me, Akna,” Azazel balked with an incredulous squawk of laughter, hissing in her direction when his amusement passed like the tease of the sun through the clouds of an endless storm. “You tried to put a spear through my brain in my sleep.”

“That _was_ telling you,” Akna argued, still infuriated she’d missed her mark on that unfortunate evening. She could have ended it all then and there, but well...Azazel never would have been that easy to outwit.

“And what of us others in the West?” Aguta asked, referring to him and Max. “We merely expressed our anger over Akna’s treatment, and you erupting with threats turned us into shut-ins out of fear. We got tired of living in fear, Azazel.”

“Over what? I never went back to the Americas again after that,” Azazel snorted, smug he'd scared them _that_ much.

“What choice did you leave? You severely overreacted…” Aguta scoffed, cringing at the memory of Azazel’s words that night.

“I might have expected you to come running to Akna’s defense,” Azazel said in English with a nod to merely piss her off, putting himself back into the hour of that conclusive encounter with his West-dwelling siblings. “But I lost a bit of patience when _he_ came along,” he said with a point to his youngest brother, who had once worshiped the ground he walked on and now saw him as a plague. “Even _you_ , Shoemowetochawcawewahcatowe, abandoned my side—”

“That’s my name!” Max squealed with a frantically-pointed finger as he jumped up and down in the snow, a grin he hadn’t expected to make tonight splitting his cheeks.

“ _That’s_ your _name_?” Stacey shouted from just outside the main stomach of fighters, Jet twisting around as she wrestled with a predator to stare her ancestor down in shock.

“Well no fucking wonder,” Louis muttered to himself, still preoccupied with his twins near the center of the fight, distantly encircled by the majority of his bus squad.

“Fucking stupid,” Harlock spat, ducking down to dodge a slash of claws and sink his own into the predator’s feet.

Azazel had paused to listen to the Guardian’s few contributions to the discovery, and he was beside himself it had been a discovery at all. “You _forgot_?” he yelled incredulously, staring his brother down with a blindsided expression.

“Well so did they!” Max cried with points around at their family, deciding then and there that he'd keep Stacey’s name. His old one might be a _bit_ long…

“I came here for _one_ purpose,” Kazimir growled, shifting the conversation back into Ualarhi for the benefit of Akna and Sukarno. “And it wasn't to waste time with stupid names, or reminisce on ancient past.”

“Yes, you came here to kill me,” Azazel agreed, turning to face his notorious mountain-dweller. “But you can't do that, Kaza. None of you can. You can't send me back to Nolaer. I _opened_ that door; you can't shove me back through it.”

“ _Mother_ opened that door—not you,” Ráðspakr contended, his stance on that concrete because he remembered every detailed second. 

“Well _I found it_ ,” Azazel choppily snapped, opposed to letting their mother take all the credit for his revolutionary and entirely independent find. “I know it—how it works. I _studied_ it,” he added, closer to another one of those anger eruptions his siblings loved to shame him for.

“If you studied it, you’d know it only takes nine of us together to open it again,” Cináed taunted, obviously not needing to mention those numbers were indeed present and ready to go.

“I’m not giving you that chance,” Azazel asserted, his senses telling him this conversation was coming to a close and with it, the break in their brawl.

“Then we’ll take it from you,” Cináed hissed, darting forward fearlessly on his own because he knew his brothers and sister wouldn’t be far behind. Peacetime was definitely over.

  


~~~

  


Harlock was decently focused on the adversaries in front of him, but his mind frequently wandered to the forest, unnerved by the occasional bright lights he’d see shooting through the trees as the magicals duked it out. He still didn’t know how many warlocks and/or witches Hadrian’s side had brought with them, but he doesn’t care how “skilled” Agnes’s picks were—if there were a fuckload more than twenty enemy magicals, they were going to have problems.

He’d already seen some immortals drop dead from invisible attacks no one here in the open could evade, but he hadn’t checked to see if it was any of them. Agnes had instructed them to keep moving as much as possible because the spells took quite a bit of time to charge (for lack of a better, more clinical term), so that’s precisely what he’d been doing. If an enemy took longer than five seconds to kill, he moved onto the next one.

Unfortunately, that meant he hadn’t killed a single enemy yet. They were freakishly, infuriatingly matched in strength. The Elders were of the same era, the teenagers of both sides stuck to themselves and were vigilantly protected by said Elders, and the humans...to be honest, he _really_ wasn’t paying any attention to them. Last time he saw a group of humans, they were practically skating down the length of the river to try and reach the other side.

He could tell where the lures were coming from to trap the humans and use them as bait, but all those compulsing vampires were conveniently tucked into the back of everything—he’d have to run through their entire forces to get to them, and he’d rather come out alive. Taking up the empty spot in his mind (where the humans would be if he had any cares for them) was of course the warlocks in the distance, and the famous trio of this entire operation.

Hadrian, Auron, and Louixander were like the Three Musketeers of Wrath. They never stilled for a second either, so Harlock wasn’t worried about warlocks besting them, but he was worried they might actually kill each other. From what he could see with every momentary glance, they were all sporting quite a large amount of their own and each other’s blood on their limbs—he could smell that too—and their faces were entirely composed of fury. Swords in the hands of all three at once was a recipe for disaster, and he could only hope they would all keep their appendages throughout the scuffle.

Of course, them fighting at all meant the originals hadn’t achieved success yet, but he wasn’t going to waste time checking their status either—it would be hard enough to see with _two_ functional eyes. All the squad needed to do was make sure to keep moving, help each other if they needed, and stay decently close to Louis in case the unthinkable was nanoseconds from occurring.

A sudden gunshot almost broke his spine from the intensity of his startled convulsion, and he whipped around to face where it had come from, discovering a human of theirs had successfully shot an enemy vampire between the eyes to release that whole section of humans he’d been holding hostage under his lure.

“What in the—”

“Did a human just do that?!” Stacey barked in shock, multitasking by tag-teaming enemies with Jet and looking to Harlock for a confirmation.

“Looks like they’re more useful than I thought...” Harlock muttered, suddenly ducking to dodge a wayward...shoe? A shoe went flying overhead from somewhere in the center, and though it was fucking ridiculous, Harlock couldn’t spare much of a reaction. He would probably accept anything this evening.

“Who is doing the lures now?” Stacey asked, grabbing hold of one vampire’s arm while Jet got the other, pulling simultaneously to tear them off. Blood sprayed everywhere accompanied by the victim’s scream, but Jet was quick to shut him up, punching through his skull as he writhed on the ground. “Well I never...this violence is not for the faint of heart,” she gasped, surprised with herself for enacting such a thing without a second thought. She was a different creature these days.

“They won’t stop moving—I can’t tell anymore,” Harlock admitted, looking around at who was nearest and whistling for the husbands’ attention. Marley and Erakus bounded over once they were free and straightened their disheveled clothing, heads non-stop turning every which way to ensure they weren’t leaving themselves open to preventable strikes.

“Where did that come from?” the Aussie inquired, no doubt referring to the heart-stopping (no ironic and oxymoronical pun intended) gunshot.

“Uh... _that way_!” Harlock unintentionally shouted, sidetracked by a sudden team of two Elders with sharp knives who had apparently set their sights on him.

“Harlock!” Marley cried, rushing forward without a thought to distract the duo.

Erakus followed so close to Marley they could have been handcuffed, and together, they were enough to throw the enemy duo for a loop. They had no knives themselves, but they had claws, and those would have to work.

“Why don't you fuckers just give up?” one of the two predators huffed, slashing out at the flannel-dressed vampire’s midsection and snarling each time he slid backward just out of reach.

“You stupid or something?” Erakus asked, wishing he could go to his husband’s side, but the older predator against Harlock took precedence. “Did you see who we brought with us?”

“Did you see how completely fine Azazel is despite that?” the predator asked in return, jutting his chin toward the original fight without taking his eyes off Marley.

“Just fucking wait,” Marley sneered, confident in the siblings’ ability to overpower their eldest. The fact that Azazel was fending every last one of them all at once was truthfully unnerving, but he had all the faith in the world they could still prevail in the end.

“Samuel!” a female predator suddenly wailed, staring down at the sight of the armless and perished male whom Stacey and Jet had desecrated. “You did this, didn't you?” she roared with a finger pointed at Stacey.

Stacey paled (though she had no blood flow) and backed up a few paces, looking first to Harlock, and then Jet for what to do. It wasn't that she was helpless, but she was still young, and she couldn't help her calamitous guilt over ripping lovers apart. Was that really what she'd been training to do?

“Stace!” Jet called in fear, unable to break away from her opponent because he wasn't one to turn her back to. Her lover was completely unguarded, and the assumed lover of ‘Samuel’ had a longsword and grief to wield it with. Bad combination.

“You're gonna pay for that, you bitch!” the woman shrieked, darting forward as she raised her sword.

“Shit!” Harlock cursed as he caught the scene over his adversary’s shoulder, fighting the Elder before him with all his might to get to Louis’ mother in time.

“Go!” Erakus snapped, leaping back and immediately shooting himself forward again, using his weight to tackle the Elder to the ground and give Harlock safe passage, even if only for a second.

Harlock didn't hesitate—with the grace of some woodsy animal, he leapt over the wrestling pair and sprinted toward the angry woman and Stacey, thinking to the Gods he'd start believing in them if he could just save this one friend.

Stacey hadn't even seen Harlock coming. One second she was staring wide-eyed at the sharp face of a sword above her face; the next, a ringed hand desperately reaching into the line of fire, and the hand’s owner shoving her backward with the force of a truck.

She flew a few metres away, straight into the pit, but luckily Jet was there to help her right back up, having escaped in the nick of time to drag her out of the danger zone and back to the sidelines.

“Come on!” Jet urged, staying crouched as she led her lover to “safety” and slipping right under the flying daggers and bodies.

“I'm so sorry—I froze, I—”

“It’s okay, babe. It's okay,” Jet assured, standing once they'd returned and gripping her lover’s hand so tight it hurt even herself. If she'd lost her before her very eyes, she doesn't know what she would have done.

Upon getting back to their area, Stacey had several things to process. One, Marley had somehow killed his Elder and gone to help Erakus with his, and both were now kneeling beside his dead body with horrified gazes locked onto Harlock’s back.

Harlock, for that matter, was knelt above the female predator he'd thankfully overpowered (with her own sword, no less), but he wasn't moving. The sword was staked into the snow, and he was leaning all of his weight into the grip he had on the handle, and the scent of blood was thick like a gas in the air.

“Harlock?” Stacey whimpered, hesitating to approach him as Erakus and Marley sprung into action and faced the encroaching predators who had begun to zero in on their situation.

“Don't stop moving!” Harlock commanded, his voice sounding strained and throaty as he swayed on his knees.

“Babe, help him!” Jet said, nudging her lover forward as she, Erakus, and Marley made a diligent circle to guard their leader, always moving so the warlocks couldn't focus on them.

Stacey snapped fully out of her blurred fuzz from earlier and shuffled through the snow toward Harlock, finding a trail of black that led from his body to the right a few feet away. She dragged her eyes along it in trepidation, swallowing thickly because she already had an inkling, and what did she find at the end? Harlock’s right hand. “Oh God, Harlock!” she breathed, quickening her pace and sliding on her knees to reach him in an instant.

She scrambled around the staked sword and grabbed Harlock’s left shoulder to stabilize him, leaning in to peer up at his face. “Harlock…this is my fault, I'm so sorry,” she cried, holding a hand over her mouth when she glanced down at all the blood spilling onto his lap from his handless arm pressed into his opposite side underneath his peacoat.

Harlock had kept his eye shut as he dealt with the pain, but hearing Stacey blame herself made him open it again, lifting his downcast face to meet her teary eyes. “Stacey…” he gritted, slowly shaking his head to invalidate her statement. “My hand is not of equal value to your existence.”

“Shit, Harlock. Stay still,” Stacey whined, twisting around to tear a section from the bottom of the culprit female’s shirt, pulling it further out from under her back to get a decently-sized strip.

“You can’t be still like this,” Harlock said right away, trying to throw her off from her caretaker impulses. “Besides...this isn’t a wound for a Band-Aid like that.”

“Please shut up,” Stacey ordered, taking her sweater off to fashion a second layer to the cover she was trying to create for his poor arm. To adhere to his reasoning, she kept circling her head around like a bird, making sure she was at least somewhat bothersome for a warlock to lock in.

“You look ridiculous,” Harlock snorted, grimacing when the mother tried to pull the sleeve of his coat away from his midsection to reveal his amputated limb.

“Shush,” Stacey reprimanded, giving an apologetic look as she guided Harlock’s arm out into the open. She steeled herself for the gruesome sight she would behold and released a focused breath, deciding to get it over with and roll the Elder’s sleeve up to his forearm. It looked as bad as she thought it would—and a bit worse, if she’s to be honest.

“Fuck!” Harlock spat in pain, knocking his head back to stare at the sky instead of his mutilated wrist.

Stacey worked as quick as possible, using her vampiric speed to wrap the stump Harlock now bore just so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore either. She had studied to be a nurse in college, up until she’d met Troy and he’d whisked her off with promises of a happy life together, and though she’d forgotten most of her studies, the process of dressing wounds was something that never really left the memory banks...even if she’d never explicitly learned how to care for something this brutal.

“I’m not left-handed,” Harlock muttered to himself in disdain, struck with all the hardships that would come with losing his dominant hand...he really didn’t need to lose any more body parts.

“What the fuck happened?” Zayn shouted, racing over with Niall glued to his side. “We knew something was up, but...fuck, Harlock,” he gulped, openly gaping at the eyepatch immortal as he finally stood and turned around, his officially claimed weapon held firmly in his remaining hand.

“Don’t bring it up. I already know,” Harlock sighed, testing the dexterity in his left arm by making a figure eight of swings, groaning over the inequality of grace it possessed in comparison to his right.

“We’ve got your back,” Zayn said to sum up all the little things he could say that would mean the same thing, seeing to Jet and Stacey’s side of things after the frantic mother chased her fighting lover since they were, in general by counting Stacey, less capable than Marley and Erakus.

“I appreciate that. Wouldn’t wanna lose my spinal cord too,” Harlock grunted with a humourless chuckle, scanning the crowd for the first predator he saw and stalking toward them with his sword poised to wreak havoc—for what had been done to him, he was going to cut someone in half. It was only fair.

  


~~~

  


Louis and the twins had disarmed each other several minutes ago, as he could have predicted they would, and no side had given the other any time to even begin retrieving them. Now the only thing to fight with were fists and feet (plus all other available body parts), and Louis was complacent with that. Not that he felt at all bad about slashing the pair earlier, but he’d rather not risk having to seriously damage them. Not in this vulnerable state of theirs.

Besides...what had just happened to Harlock had jarringly turned Louis off from the notion of wielding blades. A dismembered limb wasn’t something you could just bounce back from like a laceration, and Louis didn’t desire that fate for either three of them.

“At least you finally shut up,” Hadrian muttered now that his pesky opponent had sobered his obnoxiously vocalized passions.

Hadrian spoke much too soon. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? In that case, I’ll keep it going. You’re gonna feel like a piece of shit when this is all over, Hadrian!” Louis growled, still in shambles over Harlock losing his hand. He’d gotten enough time to look over when Jet had screamed his mother’s name, and the sight to behold in that moment was not one he would ever be forgetting.

And when Harry remembered everything, he would realize how unforgettable that was too. It pissed Louis off that time hadn’t come yet. Who else needed to lose a body part before Azazel’s lure was broken? If there’s a quota, he’ll volunteer.

“Why are you intolerably fixated on us?” Auron demanded, referencing his fuzzy but unmistakably authentic past encounters with this certain beast and wondering why the fuck he kept popping up in his life like a cockroach out of a drain pipe.

“Because Azazel has you both under a lure and I’m desperate to get you out of it!” Louis blurted, seeing absolutely no point in beating around the bush—this was the season finale, after all.

Both twins erupted in short coughs of laughter, strained as they dodged the fists of Louis’ responsive rage, but his attempts to knock them down did nothing to tarnish their amusement.

“Yes. A lure. Of course—why didn’t I think of that?” Auron giggled, blocking the Guardian’s elbow from having anything to do with his face and then enacting an extreme revenge by breaking his ankle with a kick.

“ _No_ , not again!” Louis shrieked, falling onto his back and sinking into the chilling snow as the twins stalked over to loom over him like blood-thirsty giraffes. “Knock it the fuck off, you brats!” he ordered, scrambling away and yelping when they each pulled him back by his ankles, one of which felt like the bones had been through a garbage disposal.

“It’s probably time you die now,” Hadrian clipped brightly, diving for him in the pose of a flying squirrel like they were in some showbiz match of pro-wrestling.

Louis groaned and rolled sideways to evade the ten lethal claws Hadrian had extended, but five of them still managed to pierce the outside of his shoulder blade. “Get your hand out of my skin!” he growled, swinging his stinging arm back to try and shove Hadrian away.

The act in itself was a painful one that put pressure in terrible places, but it was still nothing in comparison to his unlucky ankle—the ankle he was going to seek replacement for after this was all over. It had given him nothing but betrayal. His backward strike had luckily hit its mark, and Hadrian was now flipped over to his right side, so Louis wrapped around his back like a koala, squeezing hard and hoping he took some untarnished bones with him.

Hadrian called for Auron as he wrestled with the Guardian behind him in the snow, but his brother had been challenged by an immortal with one eye and one hand—unfortunate cards to be dealt. Seeing as he’d have to go this alone, Hadrian sent his best wishes to Auron and raised an arm to jab his elbow into the vampire’s head, but he was smaller in size and they didn’t quite match up in the most accessible way. “Get off!”

“Don’t tell me what to do with _your_ body. Try hard to understand this rather basic fucking principle,” Louis began, unable to make any moves on the offense because Hadrian’s constant onslaught of elbows were continuous enough to steal his every chance. His ankle and heart were both burning down in icy flames, but his mind was the clearest it had been in weeks. It would all end here. “You belong to me. Every part of you. I own you, Hadrian. You just don’t fucking know it.”

“Pardon?” Hadrian spat in discombobulated confusion, seconds from laughing but holding it in because he feared for the safety of his ribs. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked instead, taking in and studying the stranger’s scent for any clues beyond Jerusalem. Either he had a deranged stalker who had assaulted him nearly thrice now, or there was more to this story than what met the eye. Why in the bloody world did he think it might be the second?

“Should I say it in Latin?” Louis gritted, struggling against the clawing pain in his ankle to try and pin Hadrian’s legs down with it.

“English is quite enough,” Hadrian snarled as the vampire shoved him further down into the snow, thrashing against him to an embarrassing lack of avail. “But what the fuck could you possibly mean by it?” he pried, thinking now that if the vampire refused to answer the question he himself brought up, Hadrian would borrow energy from his reserves to break free and kill him. “No more games.”

“Because—” Louis coughed, frantically laying himself further across Hadrian when a body of unknown vitality soared too close to the ground, protecting them both to the Roman’s undoubted puzzlement. Once the air was free of cannon vamps, he fished inside his coat for the pocket which secretly held the item that _may_ jog a split-second of Hadrian’s memory...but at this rate, a split-second was an hour.

“You’re a fool for easing up—” Harry began, astounded the vampire would remove his arm and give him that much room to move. He never finished that sentence, though, because it became clear why he had stopped.

“Because otherwise, you never would have given me this,” Louis panted, dangling Hadrian’s own sun necklace in front of his face with a blood-covered hand.

“Where did you get that?” Hadrian interrogated, his eyes squinting and widening as he watched his jewerly swing back and forth like a pendulum.

“ _Your own hand_ ,” Louis emphasized, deciding what to do with the time that Hadrian’s distraction had given him. Does he lie here spooning him on the sidelines of a battle while he stares at a piece of sentimental metal, or does he break all of his ribs?

“Hadrian! Don’t just lie there!” Auron cried, still too tied up in his eyepatch brat (and two new extras) to return to his twin’s side. The enemy was hovering over Hadrian in a way that made Auron severely uncomfortable—Hadrian wasn’t in danger, or he’d be dead, but the enemy was...watching him. Waiting for something. And that almost seemed worse. “Fight back!”

If Louis _had_ made any sliver of progress, Auron’s shrill and insufferable voice set it right back to the starting line. Not the first time it's happened, but it gets less fair every time. All he wanted was to get Harry across the chessboard, and the damn Roman hadn’t moved an inch.

Louis had been sitting patiently on his side with all his little pieces, and every time he got all the way across and met Hadrian’s pieces, the match restarted. Conflict, dissonance, but no resolution. Regression. He simply wasn’t allowing it to happen this time. “There’s the Hadrian I know,” he laughed, having been blindsided by Hadrian’s sudden determination and valor to end this fight—the fight he didn’t even understand.

“You don’t know me,” Hadrian refuted, growing more conflicted every time he tried to say that.

“Yes, Aelius Hadrianus of Rome, lover of all things gay, hater of the Vandals, I know absolutely nothing. Those bite marks could have come from anywhere,” Louis grumbled, softly flicking Hadrian in the throat to address the marks he’d left himself over the centuries.

“When did you—”

“Hold him down!” Auron shouted, making wide, leaping steps through the icy ground to reach the pair.

Louis groaned and held Hadrian at bay while he searched for Harlock, finding him struggling against three other predators, including Michael, who taken over for their leader, and Zayn and Niall flocked to his side to help, considering he was battling one-handedly. That left nobody in the vicinity to stop Auron, and with the good grip Hadrian had managed to get, Louis was wide open for whatever they would do. “Let me go, Hadrian!” he begged, staring into Hadrian’s eyes and using all the lure he had to push back against Azazel—he had to break through. He _had_ to.

“Who are you?” Hadrian whispered, staring deep into Louis’ eyes with an expression like he was groveling at the universe to answer his seemingly basic question.

Thing is, it wasn’t basic. At present, Louis’ identity was the most complex riddle in the world to the twins, and by the look of it, they were just starting to truly understand that. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t kill him. With a glance at Auron’s murderous features, Louis fought back with strength he had to pull from the very bottom of his core, punching Hadrian square in the nose hard enough to break it (which he did) and yanking himself free when Hadrian’s arms loosened.

The second he stood, Auron slammed into him like a freight train, probably hoping to tackle him to the ground once more, but Louis stood strong, somehow rooted into the slippery snow with a hand pushing Auron’s forehead, thereby his extended fangs, away from his neck. He noticed Hadrian rising in his peripherals, and an angry snarl from him raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He heard a yell of his name from someone that sounded like Harlock, but the only thing he could set his eyes on was Hadrian, glaring at him with black blood rushing from his offset nose.

“Kill him!” Auron grunted, sinking his fangs into the Guardian’s hand because he’d stupidly let his guard down.

“Hadrian, don’t!” Louis yelled back, whimpering from Auron’s endorphins and secondly gasping when claws sank into the small of his back. He kept his right arm pushing at Auron’s collar bones since his left now felt like jelly, but he knew if he let go to fend Hadrian off, Auron would enough room to finish the job. He also knew if he did nothing, Hadrian wouldn’t hesitate. He was tied.

Hadrian ran forward and reality slowed to a crawl, as it iconically does, giving him more than enough time to consider the things he could have done differently, the depression Hadrian would fall under if he broke free and realized he’d killed him, and the fate of all his friends here that he wouldn’t be able to protect if he was gone.

There were a lot of thoughts that flew by as Hadrian grew closer, but they all felt like a waste of his precious time. He turned them off and twisted around in Auron’s painful grasp to face his lover, reluctantly removing his right hand from its guarding position to block Hadrian instead, determined to let Auron finish him because Hadrian would never be able to cope with that grief if he knew.

He bent his elbow and braced his forearm against Hadrian’s chest at the last second, and Auron pulled his fangs from his hand to go for his neck instead—like clockwork. He felt Auron step in closer, heard the hiss, but he spent all facets of sight on Hadrian, giving him a smile of forgiveness that would make sense someday, should Hadrian ever think back on this exact moment. _It’s okay, Harry. Better luck next time._

“NO!” the unmistakable voice of Azazel roared, only seen for a split second by Louis over Hadrian’s shoulder. The eldest original was writhing to get out of Cináed and Kazimir’s holds, who were barring him from rushing over, and his face was wracked with despair before he had to turn back around and save himself from his opportunistic siblings.

Louis didn’t understand the upset at all, considering he was currently winning his dream of destroying Alexander, but when Louis looked back to Hadrian’s face, he understood everything. Hadrian had frozen, and so had Auron. He turned his side to side to look at them, and both wore the same expression—comprehension. They were staring at him with eyes that knew him; eyes that _saw_ him. Louis didn’t know why, but the lure had just crashed and burned...and he had no idea what to do. “Harry?” he murmured into his lover’s awestruck face, standing straighter when Auron backed away from him.

“Oh Gods,” Harry sobbed with a hand over his mouth, dropping to his knees and staring up at Louis with the most heartbreaking look of shame.

“It’s okay,” Louis panted, falling to his own knees and petting Hadrian’s hair to console him. “It’s okay...you’re back,” he added, unaware of his every surrounding as he shared this moment of enlightenment with his recollective lover.

“Louis, I...Louis…” Harry choked with tears in his eyes, ruled by his self-disappointment and situational angst.

Louis couldn’t imagine his emotions since he had no relatable experiences, but from what he _could_ imagine, he didn’t want to, and that said a lot. It was probably pretty awful. This reaction from Harry was somehow ten times worse than his first realization in the dream, and it was hard to watch.

Maybe it was because this was actual real life, or maybe it was the additional memories of the dreams themselves on top of everything, but either way, Hadrian was now in no mindset to deal with a physical battle—not when he had a mental calamity on his hands—and considering where they were, that wasn’t ideal. “Harry, you’ve gotta get up. Come on. We have to break down later,” he stressed, glancing around worriedly when he finally processed how long they’d been sat in one spot, not far from the forests crawling with magicals.

“Listen to him, little brother. Now’s not the time to panic. You have to kill me now, isn’t that right?” Auron asked emotionlessly, turning both Hadrian and Alexander’s heads to him with a polarity of expressions of their faces; Hadrian with overwhelment, Alexander with shock.

Louis couldn’t believe the assumption that had fallen from Auron’s lips; it didn’t sound much like a taunt, and that was the weird part. It wasn’t a dare...it was a question. And the question was clearly fucking with Hadrian’s head.

“Do I have to?” Hadrian asked, sending all his dread through his unsure tone, meeting his twin eyes and telling them he didn’t want to.

“Do it,” Auron clipped, stalking forward until he was standing above the kneeling lovers and staring them down. “Kill me.”

“I…” Hadrian peeped, blinking profusely and giving weight to the request. Could he really kill him after all they’d been through? They’d been brothers again...though they’d struggled in the past, he couldn’t remember what Auron had ever done. A gentle arm reached out in front of him to hypothetically protect him from words, and he looked at the face whose body owned that arm. Louis.

He then remembered the stems of his problems with Auron, and he felt idiotic for not having them at the forefront of his mind, but things seemed to be coming back in spurts. Murdering Alexander, their parents, Antinous, Damianos, torturing Martin and Tanner, destroying the world...it was a big list, but was it enough to kill him? Had they both not been victims of hurt and betrayal? Was there justice in this? Were they both wrong?

To care so deeply for each other for weeks and have the truth relayed in the span of a blink was a hard shift to process, and he felt no anger to strike him with. If Auron had invited his own death a few months ago, hesitation wouldn’t have existed...but after the lure, and all the times they’d shared...it was different.

Tears welled in his eyes and he shook his busy head, drowning in thoughts that dominated his senses and left nothing but an inability to handle existence. Too much had happened in too short a time, and it felt like an overdose of the senses and emotions. He was submerged in sharp tendrils of hurt and his twin brother was telling him to kill him.

“Do it, or I will,” Auron threatened, clenching his fists at his sides while he blatantly fought his own tears, likely out of pride, his jaw moving in frustration as he ground his teeth together.

“What does that mean?” Louis asked in suspicion, being the only one of the three who had a fully operating mind and could pick up on disconcerting subtleties.

“This doesn’t concern you,” Auron sighed as he met Louis’ eyes, looking less hateful toward him than he had in the dream, but still shockingly far away from the affectionate behavior he’d once relentlessly showered him with. “Last chance. Kill me,” he repeated back to his brother, gripping his chin and forcing his tormented face up to look at him.

“ _Why_?” Hadrian demanded, hands poised to shove Auron’s hand away from his face but not following through with the reaction, too taken in the answer to his question.

 _Of course you’d want to know,_ Auron thought in a microscopic undertone of bemusement, refusing to smile though he felt he probably could. Auron had two choices now. He _could_ tell him. He could tell him the truth—that he’d rather die without him. He could tell him all about how Azazel’s lure, though extremely infuriating right beforehand, had turned out to be everything he’d ever wanted, and now that the effects of it were gone, and their relationship would never be that again, he didn’t want to go on.

Hadrian might look unsure now, but what about tomorrow? The next day? As time passed, that old resentment would grow strong once more, brewed by the things Auron couldn’t change...the things he had done in the past. Add in how very much Alexander despised him, and he knew they wouldn’t ever live together like family again. Too much had transpired; their ties were too deep.

None of this would ever be swept under any rug, and the only thing left in his future was the fruitless yearning he’d temporarily escaped. He couldn’t go back. And he couldn’t go forward. Away was all that was left...so he had to make up Hadrian’s mind for him. And he had a pretty good idea how. “You coward,” he spat, shoving Hadrian back by his face and dashing to the nearest armed human he could find.

Louis watched in rapt attention as Auron wrangled a gun out from a holster around the human’s hips, and he didn’t even see where it was being pointed before the bullet was jarringly shot from the chamber. When he figured it out, it was already too late. Marley.

The gunshot that pierced his ear drums felt more like it had ruptured his disconnected soul, and he wanted nothing to do with the picture he’d put together—it couldn’t be real. But then Marley fell. In slow-motion, he fell forward, propelled by the point-blank shot he’d received to the back of the head. Louis watched with wide eyes as his friend made his last movements—the descension to Earth—and when he landed, just as Louis feared, he didn’t get back up again.

All manner of thought and perception boiled down to a pinpoint of understanding as Louis realized the harrowing twist to his story had actually happened, and his skin felt like it was burning with invisible flames of rage. Auron had murdered Marley in the blink of an eye, with one hand, and he hadn’t even looked at him when he’d done it. That’s how little he cared about things around him. And that’s exactly why Hadrian could never truly love him.

A wail from Erakus ripped out like a matetaken wolf howling to the moon, and when he was in view, scrambling his way toward Marley to try and fix something he didn’t have the capacity to, Louis had to look away, too immersed in his own grief to add someone else’s on top. Everyone was screaming but he couldn’t look—he’d break. His gaze landed back on Auron, the vampire with the blank face and uncaring flippancy, and he was just about to turn his head to Hadrian when he felt him begin to move.

He turned his head faster and caught a glimpse of Hadrian’s cutting fury as he rose to advance on Auron, dead-set on taking his brother out, no hesitation left in the world. Auron had gone too far, and he’d done it on purpose, and there was no coming back from that. It was precisely why he’d done it in the first place, but neither Louis nor Hadrian had anticipated the level of Auron’s incentive. Marley died for their mistake. “Hadrian!” he called with a ravaged and scratchy throat, immediately diving his hand into his pocket. 

Hadrian turned only for a moment as he continued to sprint away, but that was all Louis needed. He threw Auron’s dagger right into Hadrian’s hand—the dagger that had first cemented this love triangle of hate they’d spun around and around in—and as Hadrian caught it, Auron behind him displayed the hint of a smile. Even in this moment, he could appreciate the irony.

That was the time a foreign presence crept in and violated Louis’ mind, and he doubled over in agony, trying to fight it to little avail because he had no magic in his blood...and the mysterious perpetrator did. “Dammit,” he hissed, holding his head and forcing his spine to sit him up so he could catch the upcoming string of events—and there were a lot of them.

So much happened in that bundle of seconds. One was Agnes and Jenner materializing out of nowhere, in a knowing way that made no sense, and creating a storm of magic to try and fend off the attacker set on taking Louis out. The other was Michael sliding into Harry’s path, still after everything trying to protect his maker, and with a swiftness from Hadrian which contrasted greatly to his earlier clumsiness, Michael met his end.

Michael had been something close to a friend near the end of this carnival, but Louis couldn’t grieve over someone like him. At the end of the day, he’d been the one to hold his right side steady when Auron had done what Hadrian was about to...karma had been waiting in the darkness of his shadow ever since.

Instead of watching Michael keel over, Louis’ blurry eyes searched for Auron, finding him just in time to see him mouth the words “Bye, Lexy” one last time and never look his way again. Then the pain got worse, and sudden black spots temporarily took the sight of Siberia away. _Is it my turn too?_

  


~~~

  


Erakus was numb down to his every nerve as he reached his lover, waiting for some glimmer of hope to light up the loveless world of which he’d just stepped into. He waited for movement, for a sound, a cough, and when frozen silence reigned, he knew it was true. Marley was gone.

“No…” he choked, getting two hands under Marley’s far shoulder to roll him towards him, already knowing the image he would see would haunt his every waking moment for the rest of his days.

The tears came when he looked upon Marley’s face, peaceful and still. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say Marley could be sleeping, but the hole circled in black at his hairline where a bullet had ripped his existence away left no room for that kind of imagination. He held that beautiful face in his hands and bent down to crash their lips together, crying endlessly onto his husband’s cheeks and shaking him to once again try and end the charade of the truth.

That didn’t work so he tried everything else in the book to snap some sense into reality, moving onto another method every time something failed. Shaking did nothing, pleading did nothing, slapping, whining, and begging did nothing—he’d lost him. He needed to come to terms with that.

But how could he possibly? He held his husband’s hand in his own, weaving their fingers together and staring at the side-by-side wedding rings Marley had looted from a zombie for them. They’d had a whole future ahead of them after this battle was in their past, and Erakus couldn’t even begin to fathom himself facing that idealistic future by himself. That wasn’t the point. That wasn’t the deal, or the agreement. Nowhere did it state he should move on if Marley was left behind.

“I love you, baby,” he cried, scooping Marley up to clutch him to his chest, rocking him back and forth until he got the impulse to stay still, now wishing a far-off warlock would see him as easy prey and let him follow his one and only love. Maybe getting himself killed wouldn’t look as pathetic as suicide—maybe that way, his family wouldn’t be disappointed.

“Erakus, move!” Elijah roared, stuck behind a wall of predators with no way to reach his brother and pick him up off the ground. If he didn’t move, those warlocks would surely hit their mark, and the rest of his family were still too far away to do anything but command the same action of him. Fuck...that might be Erakus’s plan. “Fuck’s sake, Era, get up!” he repeated, terrified that his brother’s one-tracked intention would be granted. He wasn’t thinking straight, and he needed his family. “Please!”

Erakus heard his brother, but he made no visible indication that he did, sending mental apologies to his family that would never be received. Hopefully they just knew...without him needing to say so. _You can’t say you would do any different._ “Don’t wait up,” he whispered to his precious Marley, smiling victoriously as that laughably predictable attack showed itself in a tinging of his nervous system, the relieved Sparrow inviting it in like an old friend. _Be right there._

  


~~~

  


Auron sent his silent regards to Alexander the Great and then faced his brokenhearted twin, holding his arms out as though he were receiving no greater than an embrace and trying to convey how much he _did_ regret spurring this resolution in Hadrian’s heart. He had to hurt Hadrian to save himself, and it had worked, but at a cost he hated bestowing—he was selfish to his last night.

Hadrian was crying uncontrollably with the untarnished dagger held tightly in his hand as he raced toward him, and the sight in itself, the creature to do it, and the object in use were more fitting than anything else could have been. Auron wouldn’t want to go any other way. “I’m sorry, Hadrian,” he swore, spoken clearly and unmistakably so he could secure his closure, slowly nodding to egg his shattered brother on.

Hadrian squeezed his eyes shut but kept running, apparently setting aside his emotions and reopening them, now with nothing but anger swimming in them. _Good boy, Hayway._ Hadrian closed the distance and grabbed him by the side of the neck, and Auron knew his time was up.

He couldn’t see it, because he was devoted to his twin’s eyes, but just out of frame, there was another hand sweeping his own dagger through the air aimed for his skull, so he used his last seconds to extrapolate on his earlier apology. “For everything.”

For last words, Auron thought they were pretty decent. There was nothing else to say, and nothing else necessary for Hadrian to hear. Auron did a good job. Then, after a sharp burst of pain, there was nothing. Must have been how Lexy felt.

Hadrian let out the sob he’d withheld as he crushed Auron against his chest, yanking the dagger out now so he didn’t have to do it later and letting it drop somewhere behind him. He then clumsily fell down with his brother in his arms and landed somewhat on top of him, cursing and mourning him all in one horrible embrace.

Black blood coated his hand which he’d instinctively covered the fatal head wound with, and the scent of death on him was unnaturally strong. Perhaps only _so_ strong because it was his twin brother’s under his nose. He slammed his forehead onto Auron’s chest and heaved another sob, rendered a slave to the onslaught of childhood memories that came along with what he’d just done.

Quick as they’d come those thoughts dissipated, leaving only the present and near-past to ruminate on, and that was much worse to address. Marley was dead, and Auron had died for it, but was the point? What was the fucking point to anything? What the fuck was victory if it wasn’t keeping those close to you out of harm’s way? Harry had no answers for any of his confusion, and he probably could have pondered it forever lying on top of his vanquished brother, but a shrill scream sent chills up his spine and he had to turn his head. He had to know.

Turns out that scream had been Jenner. Harry was surprised, because with a quick reflection, he knew he hadn’t seen the warlock even once during this fight, and he didn’t know the woman beside him at all, but he knew the boy they were guarding, and all three of them were being pursued by Azazel.

Louis, aside from the pain, was mostly just annoyed that Azazel had decided to take his anger out on him. The original had yelled like someone tore a limb off once Hadrian took Auron down, but instead of rushing to the pair, he’d set his sights on Louis instead.

The mysterious warlock fucking with him still had a tiny hold on him, trying his very best to infiltrate the barrier Agnes had set up, so Louis couldn’t move like he wanted to, but he still tried to crawl away from Jenner and Agnes, passionate about keeping them alive and not involving them any further than they had themselves.

Nobody else should have to die.

“This is _your fault_!” Azazel bellowed, shifting his angry stepping to running as Louis scooted further and further back, reconciling with his very real death this time because Azazel and his siblings were the one group of creatures he could never stand a chance against.

“Louis!” Harry cried, putting his all into his frantic run past the horde of predators who tried uselessly to get in his way, stealing a sword to utilize every possible method of slowing his maker down.

“Erakus!” Louis heard Veronica scream, shoving a black pit of dread down into his stomach so dense he could have thrown up as a vampire. _Not him too,_ he pleaded, unable to look because he didn’t want to see what Veronica’s tone had suggested he might. It was too much. “My baby Era!” she continued to sob, solidifying Louis’ worst fear. _This can’t be happening._

“It’s because of you!” Azazel repeated, claws and fangs drawn and ready to cut Agnes and Jenner down on his way to get to him. Louis wanted so much to scream at the two magicals and order them to step aside; he yearned for the strength to push the unseen warlock out of his mind to stand up and physically force them away, but he was worth nothing...and maybe this _was_ all his fault. Maybe he deserved to pay the price for that. Maybe he owed it to the Sparrows, and to Marley. Would his sacrifice bring them retribution?

“Aggie!” Cináed erupted, being the closest of his siblings to Azazel’s back, his love for his woman propelling him further so he might catch his brother at the last second.

Agnes, for all her intelligence, seemed adamant to give everyone that much more time to take Azazel out by standing in his way, and that resolve set a fire behind Cináed’s heels, but it still didn’t look like he would make it. Louis screamed for Agnes, and Harlock screamed for Jenner, both fighting to push through their disadvantages to be of use and sacrifice themselves in the magicals’ ignorant stead.

Just as Azazel reared his clawed hands back to cut the two down, Harry (previously unseen by the distracted Louis) flew in front of his maker and rammed a sword up through Azazel’s chin until it stuck out the top of his skull. The siblings were there instantly to stop their brother’s momentum, Max diving down to capture his legs while the others took up every other open spot.

Louis thought Harry’s deed would have won them the entire fight, but a chilling and sloppily-spoken response came from the original with a blade through his brain, and hope was put on yet another standstill: “This won’t kill me, Hadrian.”

The originals backed off and made a few quick motions behind their brother, and Harry was lost for words, standing frozen in his position and probably contemplating what the fuck he would do now. Nobody made a move on the river bank, all shocked and speechless at the turn of events the battle had undergone. What would happen? If this wouldn’t kill him, what could?

“No,” Cináed agreed, a smirk on his face that looked all too victorious to be without faithful reason. “But this will,” he said, initiating a magic-like storm of invisible forces to whip strong gusts of wind throughout the area.

The air itself parted slightly behind Azazel and revealed what looked like a door—a portal to some other place far out of reach from this one. Azazel snapped the blade under his chin so he could move and looked a hair over his shoulder, eyes wider than Louis had ever seen him as he displayed an emotion that also looked foreign on his usually confident face—fear.

Louis gasped when the magical presence he’d endured abruptly left his mind, leaving no trace of its nefarious prodding behind. He didn’t know if the warlock or witch had simply given up, became too engrossed in the new order of events, or if Agnes had finally found and taken them out, but it gave him all the freedom needed to focus on what was happening before his eyes...the potential end.

“Impossible,” Azazel stated barely above a whisper, trying for a breath of a moment to run away before his eldest brothers sank their claws into his skin and started dragging him backward. “No!” he growled, digging his heels into the snow as if that would help his case in any way. “You’ll pay for this,” he swore to Cináed, glaring at him because he was closest and most deserving of his anger. “You have to come home sometime...and when you do…”

“Have fun with Mom, Azazel,” Cináed said tonelessly as impenetrable vines of black smoke wrapped around Azazel to yank him through the realms, apparently not putting any weight into Azazel’s final threat.

“Hadrian,” Azazel tried next, face full of desperation as he implored assistance from his last surviving twin. The loss of Auron had utterly destroyed his heart, but if Hadrian was there for him, maybe some of it would be spared.

Harry looked down to the snow at Azazel’s feet, too buried in pain and despair to meet his maker’s eyes, hating and mourning him in a way similar to his brother and not knowing how to interact because of it. “Goodbye, Zaza,” he said, his lungs tightening when Azazel scoffed in betrayal.

Cináed sped up the process with Utul at his side and hurled Azazel back into the depths of Nolaer, cringing at his enraged cries of protest as their eldest passed through the opening. A brilliant white light burst through the doorway and everyone who didn’t wish to be blinded covered their faces, steadying themselves against the wind until there was no sound left but snowflakes falling upon the Earth.  

Louis opened his eyes again and stared hard at the place wherein Azazel had just been moment prior, almost waiting for him to show back up and laugh about how stupid they’d all been for thinking they’d defeated him. Moments went by and no sign of Azazel came through any secretive dimensional gates, but the knots in Louis’ body wouldn’t unclench until he got some kind of vocalized confirmation from the originals—the only ones who had any idea what was going on.

“Is it over?” Harry asked for him, gaze nailed to Cináed as he passed him without a glance on his way to Agnes.

“Back to the zamok. Now,” Cináed ordered to his lover, rage written in his every feature as his challenge floated in the air between their faces.

Agnes tightened her lips and nodded once, grabbing Jenner’s hand and disappearing back into hiding until further notice. Louis didn’t understand why she and Jenner had come at all, not to mention how they’d known just where to be to save him, but he was relieved beyond measure no harm had come to them. He couldn’t say the same for all his family, which was something he was still thinking circles around, but he had to learn to be thankful for some things.

Distant cries were heard from the Sparrows, who’d gained enough free range to leave their enemies and crowd around Erakus and Marley, but Louis could sense the battle wasn’t over yet even now—that was obvious by the lack of dropped weapons from the predators. Would they really face off their horrible odds?

“You all have two choices!” Cináed announced, heightening the volume of his voice to bounce around the bank and reach all ears, including the magicals in the trees who were still valiantly fighting each other despite the vampires’ pause. “You can either stay and experience more death, or you can go the fuck home and leave this world alone. If you choose to continue the stirrings of my brother, I will personally see to it that every last one of you is horrifically disposed of. You’ve lost. Accept that,” he said, giving ample time for Auron’s followers to come to their respective conclusions.

“Never!” a voice persisted, revealed to belong to Beatrix, the initial catalyst who had brought utter ruin unto Hadrian and Louixander’s lives.  

 _Long time no see, you wench,_ Louis sneered in his head, plotting out how he would vengefully kill her when something else did it for him.

The sudden gunshot scared everyone again, since the land was now quiet and tentative, and only the direction in which Beatrix fell sent Louis’ curious gaze in the right backward path to find the shooter. His mother.

“That’s enough out of you,” Stacey bit, an edge of ‘this is personal’ within her frown that told Louis she knew exactly who she’d just shot.

At that moment, the Sparrows, having done nothing but mourn for the finale of the battle, broke their depressive stupor and sparked the continuation themselves, pouncing on the nearest predators and ripping them apart to get their emotions out. That predictably turned the river bank back into the warzone it had previously been, and Harry quickly yanked Louis to his feet, glancing around for a good target to destroy—he had shit to get out as well. 

“Figured as much,” Cináed muttered, checking with his siblings to see if they had the same idea and then nodding to set some plan in motion. Apparently no one would be getting release quite yet. Louis tried to keep an eye on the nine originals as they set off to cover the ground in one large sweep, but they were too fast to focus on in his bleary state, and as they desecrated the remaining predators, Louis found himself leaving Harry's side to approach Erakus and Marley instead.

The Sparrows, having been left with nothing to do after Akna and Aguta had killed everyone they’d lunged for, had regathered just where Louis was itching to go, and he had to nudge himself between Susanna and Kaisa to get into the circle. What he found just took his useless breath away, and only Harry’s hand on his shoulder kept him from breaking down.

It was quite clear that Erakus had fallen due to a warlock, for he was without injuries, lying peacefully across Marley’s chest with his face tucked into his neck like they were merely cuddling. Veronica was knelt beside her son and stroking his hair, and Erakus’s two brothers seemed to be the only things holding each other up. William was expressionless, as were his parents, but their inner feelings still seeped from their pores like neon signs on the night highway. They were distraught.

“This is my fault,” Harry sniffed, leaving Louis’ side as he lowered to the ground and crawled over to sit beside them across from Veronica. He wrapped his fingers around the woman’s dainty forearm and looked into her eyes, biting back his sorrow until he voiced his confession. “I did this. I’m so— _so_ sorry...”

The Guardians and the originals busying themselves with the predators allowed for the whole bus squad to abandon their posts and join the circle, and it wasn’t long until everyone Louis was close to were standing shoulder-to-shoulder and looking at the scene with the deepest of sympathy and grief.

“It wasn’t you,” Veronica meekly argued, drying her eyes regardless of the tears that weren’t done yet and straightened her curved spine. “We chose to fight this battle. We knew of this chance,” she said, trying to find some conviction to put behind her words but the horrific truth of said consequences were invincible beasts to face. Her son was gone.

“I don’t know what I could ever do to—”

“You can’t,” Veronica said, stopping Harry before he could say something like ‘right this wrong’ or ‘make it up to you.’ It wasn’t that she wouldn’t accept his efforts, it was that there were none to make. There was no erasing this loss, and there was no justice to be had for it. It was what it was.

Harry’s head fell and his shoulders sank, giving a somber nod and a squeeze of Veronica’s wrist before standing and removing himself from the circle completely. Louis had two choices but opted to take Harry’s place in lieu of following him, paying surreal respects to two of his closest friends who had met unanticipated ends in such a terrible way. It had barely sank in and they were right in front of him...was it truly real?

“Look at their hands,” Harlock noted, holding his mutilated arm to his chest and smiling down at his two long-time tenants in fond appreciation.

Louis took the suggestion and glanced at their joined hands, finding blood all around their skin that miraculously hadn’t touched their rings, both shining bright gold even in the dark of night. Humans would be unable to spot the radiance, but for vampires, the colour looked doused in sunlight. Just as it should be.

Louis’ tears escaped him and he bent down to kiss both of their hands, laying his head on its side atop Marley’s chest and sliding forward until his nose hit Erakus’s upper arm, boxing his face in-between their familiar and lingering scents.

He breathed deeply and let his memories with them flow through his thoughts like a roll of film, from the first meeting at the bar in Harlock’s game room to the epically basic wedding ceremony on the dock of Julius’s ship. He sequenced everything in order and found not one bad moment—they’d been frequently incorrigible, and their insatiable libidos had ticked everyone off at least once, but they’d been loyal and family-driven up until the end. Pure gifts to have around...and now they were gone.

Louis couldn’t sit there anymore and straightened his knees, taking note of his wobbly ankle and reminding himself to stay off it for a while unless he wanted some serious damage that would take a week to heal on its own. Over the downcast heads of the surrounding vampires, Louis could spot the sea of bodies strewn across the snow, the last standing predators looking into the face of death as the originals picked them off.

It was a sight he felt nothing to witness, because that side of the battle had been wrong from the start. They deserved this.

The humans they’d had under their lures had been swiftly released and guided across the white field by the Guardians’ humans to nurture back to coherency, and Harry...where was Harry?

Harry was knelt beside Auron. Upon internalizing that gut-wrenching sight, Louis took his leave from his family and friends, gripping Stacey’s shoulder as he passed and letting her see his relief to have her after everything that could have happened to her. He knew how lucky he was; and considering Veronica’s pain, so did she.  

He then approached his lover and repeated that same shoulder grab, only this time, silent cries were inflicted in the form of subtle shakes, and Harry reached up to cover his hand with his own.

“I shouldn’t be upset,” Harry said, sounding put off with himself for allowing such emotions to billow out when Auron had caused so much irreparable destruction upon his friends.

“Harry, you’re allowed to be anything you want,” Louis asserted, staring down at Auron’s body and slightly shaking his head from the surreality. For so long he’d been haunted by the older twin; so long he’d looked over his shoulder because he trusted no one less; to think his reign was truly over was something he’d waited centuries for, but to realize it was now was...almost unbelievable.

He looked around as Harry let his quiet sniffs gradually fade away, noticing the originals had stormed the predators and taken out the last ones, and the righteous warlocks were beginning to emerge from the trees, their skin charred and burnt in multiple places as though they had all fought with fireworks.

“Are they gone?” Louis asked Molly when she was close enough, glancing at the joined hands of her and Evelyn and finding he was neutrally glad they’d both made it out alive.

“No...yes...they zapped away when they figured out they were losing. They won’t be back, but a lot of them technically escaped,” Molly informed, shrugging because they’d done the best they could and escaped or not, those warlocks had been defeated.

“Okay,” Louis said simply with nothing else to add, kneeling down to wrap his arms around Harry’s hunched frame. “You should get up, Harry,” he whispered, hooking his arms under the Roman’s armpits and lifting him to stand whether he got an acceptance or not.

“What do we—” Harry began, pausing to clear his throat and run his fingers through his hair, “—what do we do with Erakus and...and Marley?” he asked, looking back to the conglomerate of their friends and heaving a troubled sigh.

“I don’t know...come on,” Louis urged, guiding Harry back to the circle to subliminally ask that question to the Sparrows.

As they were trudging toward their friends, Agnes and Jenner zapped back into the scene with a loud clap, and the orange-haired warlock shrieked when he spotted his beaten-down and one-hand-less lover, having been too busy the first time he’d appeared to notice his injuries. “Harlock!” he wailed, tripping and stumbling his way to the left side of the circle to assess what had happened.

Harlock held his good arm out and crushed Jenner to his chest, deciding to set aside the lectures he wanted to give until they were alone. He was about to mumble some form of greeting when Jenner’s eyes fell inside the circle, quickly processing what he was seeing and choking on a gasp. “What is this?” he asked with trembles in his voice, shuffling over and sitting down hard beside them. “No...no, it can’t be…”

“It is—”

“ _No_!” Jenner snapped to interrupt Harlock’s nihilistic response, whipping his head around to find Agnes and pointing at her in Cináed’s arms. “Do something! Can’t you do something?” he shouted desperately, his pleading face turning to a glare when the witch (the most powerful witch in the world) stuttered around a response.

“Jenner, it...it doesn’t work like that,” Agnes said carefully, hating to crush his hopes but it was hard to avoid when there was no hope to begin with. “You can’t bringing someone back like that. If it was a human, and I’d been there when it happened...I could put a soul back...but...if there was no soul to begin with…” she trailed, turning further into Cináed when Jenner’s expression absolutely broke. It hurt to see.  

“No, no, no,” Jenner sobbed, falling forward onto his friends and throwing his arms around them in lament.

Niall, Zayn, Tanner, and Martin had been struggling enough to cope, but Jenner’s reaction tipped them over the edge, and soon everyone that knew the pair were crying into their sleeves.

“We’re going to go,” Aguta said after a while, his arms around Akna and Sukarno and looking at a bit of a loss for how to handle teenage vampires’ grieves.

“All of you?” Louis asked, stepping around everyone to address their group of impossible beasts he still couldn’t believe they’d successfully collected.

“I’m staying,” Max said, his arms tight around an exhausted Øvind as he swayed them foot to foot. “For a while…”

Louis already figured Cináed was staying as well so he didn’t feel the need to ask, looking instead to the rest of them in question.

“Rest of us have no reason to,” Utul said, looking impatient to get back to the darkness of his Egyptian pyramids. “We’ve done what we set out to do.”

“That you have. Losses aside, we couldn’t have done this without you,” Louis said, giving a small but respectful bow to the entire group in thanks.

“You’re not done yet; you still have to set the world back. Make sure another leader doesn’t pop up in that Roman’s place,” Max noted, prepared to help in any way he could so he never had to do this again.

“We’ll take care of our areas when we get home. Break the lures. Kill some spawn,” Kazimir promised, taking a huge weight off Louis’ chest because if that were the case with them all, it looked like he only had America to worry about. As big a place it was, it was smaller than the entire world combined. 

“I don’t know how I can show my appreciation—”

“Just never bother me again,” Kazimir cut in, a tiny smile contradicting his dead-end tone.

“That’s a deal,” Louis said instantly, thinking back to his first meeting with Kazimir and how it could have potentially ended in his death had Cináed not showed up right when he did.

“One more bite before I go?” Aguta asked with an inappropriate smirk, looking Louis up and down in that maddening way he seemed habitual to.

“Excuse me?” Harry asked coldly, narrowing his eyes at the original and recalling the dream conversation he’d had with Louis in which they’d swapped accusations of new bites on each other. This was obviously one of those culprits…

Louis rolled his eyes and shook his head, refusing to grace that wish with a response when the topic was so far out of place anyway. He’d lost close friends and Aguta wanted to bite him. What did the original think was going to happen?

“Shame. Ta, Alexander,” Aguta bid, leaping upward as he twisted himself down and diving straight through the snow and into the Earth, leaving a sizable tunnel behind and he dug like a mole.

“Is that really…” Louis trailed, watching as Utul, Kazimir, Sukarno, Akna, Ráðspakr, and Hiroto wordlessly jumped down after him and disappeared from all sight and sound. “Ta…”

Max began to fill the hole with more snow to leave it unseen while his siblings blocked the path somewhere further down, and Louis snuck back into the circle, rubbing the backs of Elijah and Niko as he met Veronica’s eyes. “What’s happening?” he whispered to her, getting to the point without being too blunt because although she was in a dreadful state, the sun would rise eventually and they’d need to be someplace else.

“We’re going to Tahoe,” she replied, smiling warmly despite it not reaching her bloodshot eyes.

“What time is it over there?” Louis asked, unsure of what time it even was here.

“Six in the evening. The sun will set soon, and we’ll...have a—a service for them,” she muttered with a look of strained neutrality, crossing her arms over her stomach and squishing up to her husband.

“Agnes, are you doing this?” Louis asked, taking care of business because someone had to. He’d let himself feel this black hole of melancholy later.

Agnes nodded and Louis did the same to show he understood, walking to the Guardians and magicals they’d fought with who were busied putting bodies in a pile, kindly separating their side from the other. Luckily they’d left Michael and Auron alone, probably unsure what to do with them, and to note, Julius, Petra, and Bernard had all survived. Lauren, however, had not...

He was looking specifically for Evelyn and Molly, though, so he squinted his eyes and asked around until he was directed to a tipped log near the bank where the two girls had taken up a relaxing sit. “Can I ask a favour?” he asked to the kindhearted Molly, knowing Evelyn and her attitude were significantly harder to communicate with.

“Depends,” Molly replied honestly, having no loyalty to Alexander the Great that would propel her to do anything he requested if she didn’t want to.

“Can you take four of us to Rome and then California?” he asked, once again making plans without consulting anyone but himself because he knew what needed to be done—especially what Harry’s unspoken needs were.

“When?” Evelyn asked, for once looking easy-going and helpful instead of scornful (due to Louis’ species).

“Soon,” Louis said, beginning to walk away when he got two thumbs-up from the girls. “Thanks,” he added, leading the uncharacteristically quiet Harry all the way back to their group for short farewells.

“What are you doing?” Zayn murmured when they got back, having watched them walk all over the place in confusion.

“We’re gonna go to Rome,” Louis announced so the whole group would hear, turning heads and faces from the jarring volume of his speaking voice. It wasn’t that he was loud, per se, it was that everyone else had been locked in whispers. “And then we’ll be at your place. In an hour?” he added to Veronica and William, glancing at Kyösti and Lotta as well in case any of them had some sort of problem with that.

“Do you want us to come with you?” Martin asked mostly to Harry, who had a hard time even meeting his eyes, especially after what had happened in the tunnels.

“No, we have to do this alone,” Louis said, his eyes automatically dropping to Erakus and Marley, still in the same position they’d fallen in because no one had saw a point in moving them. “We’ll be there soon,” he sighed, meeting gaze after gaze and letting himself be thankful none were shadowed with resentment. He could probably accept it if they were, but it was obviously preferential that they weren’t.

A few small farewells were given and he, once again, saw himself out of the pack with Harry at his side, walking toward Michael and Auron’s locations and whistling with his fingers to get Evelyn and Molly’s attention. The witches heard and leapt up from their spots, and Louis lifted Michael into his arms, watching as Harry did the same with his twin and kept his face stone-cold to thwart the inner truth—he was in ruins.

“Where to?” Molly asked when she arrived, trying her hardest not to look at the bodies in the vampires’ arms—didn’t seem polite.

“Palatine Hill,” Louis replied, catching the jolt in Harry’s frame because he might not have expected such a sentimental Roman place to become Auron’s burial site...but where else would they have gone?

“You’re in luck, I don’t even need a map for that,” Molly said, initiating the face-touches to bond them together for the journey and closing her eyes to focus on the necessary steps.

Louis looked back toward his California-bound group and discovered Agnes was busy doing the same thing, so all plans were in motion. He didn’t think he’d be coming back here, and he didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to all the Guardians he’d met along the way, but he figured maybe a letter or phone call would suffice once this was all over.

It did feel a bit out-of-place to be separating from their friends so soon after this ended, and in such heart-rending circumstances, but this was something Harry needed for closure he wouldn’t ever get unless they did, and Louis knew they would be back with them soon. They could say everything they needed to then.

Also, there was the fact that the world was still in widespread peril with predators lurking in every corner, and the only thing they were going to do was focus on themselves, but that was probably the most understandable factor of them all. They had lost people—important people—the world could fucking wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do we feel? Sorry...  
> We're close to the end, and I doubt the next chapter is going to take anywhere NEAR the 84 years this one did, so we'll see. I'm going to need a huge break after this one before I start the fourth one, holy shit. I've been working on this story for 8 months straight. Anyone who's been here since road to recollection WHEN i uploaded it, you've been here for seven months. Can you believe that? By the time the last segment is done, it'll probably be a year of love endless. that is ridiculous hahaha. Kay, I've rambled enough. Send me ya hate comments if you must <3 byee.  
> Oh, also, for those of you who have read my a/b/o's, and you saw the term matetaken and automatically recognized it...*does a finger gun at you*


	22. Last Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the last chapter. I know the title is conclusive as fuck, cuz it entails conclusions, but we still have one more to go before the epilogue. I decided to split the cooldown into two to not only get it out quicker, but be somewhat consistent with my chapter sizes lol.  
> This is essentially fully Harry and Louis, so yippee, but it's still not the happiest of times. These things take time. Healing, I mean.  
> I miss Erakus and Marley so much, fuck. This sucks. (I literally wrote this?). I can still complain. it sucks. bye bye my gay "straight" boys.  
> Urg, so close to the end. What am I even gonna do? Write the prequel, I guess, but it's not the same. This is end of an era. Hwak Hwak.

Louis and Harry, with the witches’ help, zapped just outside the worn-down shambles of the Temple of Apollo Palatinus, the ancient structure nothing more than the skeleton foundation of the grandeur it once claimed. Hadrian looked uneasy to be here at all, but he accepted Louis’ decision, easily stepping over the knee-high gate of diamonds (or x’s, depending on how you looked at it) that had been built around the “historic” site.

“Give us a little bit?” Louis murmured to the two females they’d hitched rides from, hiking Michael up in his arms while he gave them a one-sided smile. 

“Yeah, of course,” Molly agreed, already backing her lover up to go wander by themselves. “It was four in the morning in Siberia, but it’s eleven here, so you’ve got plenty of time,” she added whether he knew it or not, shrugging when he nodded curtly and turning Evelyn away before she could make any cracks.

Louis watched them stroll off and sighed to himself, checking with the sky to see if the Gods were watching before picking up his feet and stepping over the fence. Didn’t look like the Gods were present, or maybe they just didn’t care, but at the very least, they just hadn’t seen that gun pointed at Marley. _Useless every time._

His eyes searched the darkness for his Harry and found him half-under the shade of an umbrella-pine tree, his other half bathed in moonlight that unnervingly saturated the blood caked on his and Auron’s skin. He walked up to and past Harry, gingerly setting Michael down at the roots of the tree’s trunk and brushing his palms against his jeans. “Will you wait here, Harry?” he asked his stoic lover, staying put until Harry snapped out of it and looked over to him.

“Where are you going?” Harry asked when he registered the words, his eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement.

“Over to that construction site,” he said with a point down the hill some odd miles away, not necessarily needing to mention why he would be in search of tools considering the basis for their visit. “Are you going to stay here?”

“Where would I go?” Harry challenged, carefully sitting down with Auron in his arms while Louis floundered for a reply.

“I don’t know...I’ll be back,” Louis sighed, rushing off down the hill to find what he needed and be back as soon as possible. He did want to give Harry some time to himself, though, so maybe he wouldn't rush _too_ much.

Harry’s eyes fell to his brother and he brushed the hair away from his stained forehead, trying futilely to wipe some of the blood from his face and giving up when he felt too much like he was disturbing his deceased twin.

“Damn you, Auree,” he spat, holding his mirrored face with a gentle palm and fighting between the urges to kiss or punch him. Auron done so much bad in his volatile existence, and to have all that unforgivable nefarity wiped away over the course of a few weeks under a lure was tearing Harry in two. He had the strongest sensation of whiplash he’d ever felt trying to decide how he felt about Auron—how big this pain should actually be.

It seemed like such an easy decision; Auron killed Marley, and that in turn killed Erakus. He should hate him. Auron had ransacked his childhood and destroyed everything he’d come to love and adore; he should hate him. Auron had murdered the one thing Hadrian had decided he couldn’t ever lose; he should hate the fuck out of him, and a part of him did.

The issue was how shocking the size of that part was—not large if that wasn’t obvious. There was that _other_ side to Auron to take into account; the other side to the messes he’d created: the weakness, the hurt, the longing, the self-hatred, and the automatic, instinctive, and natural care he’d treated Hadrian with when left to their own ignorant devices...those tripped the flow. Those made you think.

And what did Harry think?

He thought despite the extenuating circumstances (in which Auron had undoubtedly deserved to die for), everything about this fucking sucked.

“Why did you have to be like that, Auree? Why?” he begged, wishing with all his mental power that the lure-driven relationship hadn’t been so...fabricated. To an extent, it hadn't been, but he doesn't mean the kindness; he means the details of which their lives consisted.

He wishes the past really _hadn’t_ transpired the way Auron had orchestrated it; rather, that his twin hadn’t ever done a thing wrong, and that affection really was what they’d always given each other. They really _could_ have lived together as a family had that been the case...Auron brought on this fate himself.

“But it wasn’t your fault, was it?” he asked to his unresponsive brother, quick to make the excuse for him: that his mind wasn’t always his own. “Stupid fucking genetics,” he groaned, cursing his ancient familial ancestors for passing the darkness of their minds down to his _twin_ —his other half.

It could have just as easily been him. It could be him lying in Auron’s arms right now while he mourned him and sought comfort in the presence of his Macedonian King. It was so close to being him...would he have made the same call at the end? Would he have begged Auron to kill him? And why had Auron wanted to die _so_ badly?

“No,” he said before he let himself be willingly ignorant, rolling his eyes and chuckling through his wallow. “I know exactly why you did it...and why you made me…”

It felt wrong talking when Auron couldn’t and wouldn’t respond, especially since he never shut up any other time, but there was something he needed to say. After this, he wouldn’t get the chance. He pulled Auron up in his arms and placed a steadying hand on the back of his head, giving him a short kiss on the lips and then touching their foreheads together. “I really shouldn’t, and I don’t know why I do, but...I forgive you…”

Louis returned at that point so he lowered his twin back onto his lap, shifting sideways to greet his overly cautious and nervous lover. “Louis, I won’t _break_ —I’m fine,” he assured with a forced smile, beckoning his King over while he set Auron all the way down and reached for one of the two shovels he’d collected.

“I know, I just…” Louis trailed, changing his mind on delving into that and wordlessly transferring to the longer shovel to the taller Harry.

“Where do we dig?” Harry asked, staking the shovel in the ground until he had a reason to actually use it.

“Well...he’s _your_ brother,” Louis said awkwardly, for some reason not comfortable with making that kind of permanent decision.

“Right,” Harry agreed, walking around the empty grass garden outside the temple and scrunching his lips up as he documented all the preferable places. “Actually, I think here will work,” he said as he returned to where they’d been, yanking the shovel out like a sword in stone and walking just east of the umbrella-pine.

“So mote it be,” Louis said under his breath, lifting his shovel a foot from the Earth and plunging it through the soil to give his tool a good mouthful to uproot.

Harry watched him do it three more times before he joined, making his own indents across from Louis’ and falling into a system that would be strenuous if he were any species than the one he was.

The two didn’t have much to say as they carved a grave into the ground, listening only to distant night-critters and the thwacks of their metallic shovels. Once they were knee-deep into the growing plot, Louis suddenly stopped, holding the handle of his shovel in both hands as he looked over his shoulder. “You killed Michael…” he said, grimacing for even bringing it up at such a time but he hadn’t been able to help it.

“Yes?” Harry replied with slight annoyance, dutifully resuming his digging because he certainly wasn’t stopping for a conversation about Michael Stonewall.

“I don’t know...he was kind of my friend,” Louis said with a shrug, outright cringing when Harry actually did freeze this time.

“What!” Harry barked, face in sheer disbelief like he was positive Louis was lying through his teeth. “He helped kill you in England.”

“Yeah, he did,” Louis agreed, incapable of refuting that proven fact, but that wasn’t the point. “But he...he helped us. Us Guardians. Risked his life for us, and we kind of let that shit go in the meantime. He was nice to me. I’m just saying...forget about it,” he said with a quick shake of his head, starting up the digging again and praying Harry would just copy him and fall into silence again.

“Do you want me to _apologize_ or something?” Harry demanded angrily, tightening his hands on his shovel before he lifted it like a bat and knocked Louixander upside the head.

“No,” Louis said instantly, keeping his eyes on the dirt he was ferociously relocating. “I’m sorry. Please forget I said anything,” he urged, worried that Harry would start to think he held some form of resentment that truthfully didn’t exist. “I thought it at the time, but karma had it in for him.”

“Did karma have it in for Marley and Erakus too?” Harry challenged, huffing when Louis pointedly gave no response, digging with more vigor this time around to get this over with quickly.

This silence was dense with tension and Louis had only himself to blame. He used extra speed to drill his way down, and eventually the two had created a sizeable grave that only Harry’s chin could rest over. They looked to each other after fine-tuning the corners to agree they had finished, then leapt back up to the surface, tossing both shovels to the side and snorting when they made a perfect X.

“You take your friend first,” Harry said, no real fire behind his words but they still stung a little.

Louis cleared his throat and lifted the pretty blonde into his arms, taking the both of them to the ledge of the grave and gracefully floating down to the bottom, laying him along the length and making sure his arms were out of the way for Harry’s descent. The second he jumped back up Harry took his turn, lining his brother up with his most prized creation and hoping if both he and Louis were to die, someone would do this to them as well.

With that thought of last respects in mind, he connected Auron and Michael’s closest hands, scooting them in closer together so their sides touched from shoulder to foot. “Good enough,” he said, clambering up the end wall of the grave and spinning around until he plopped down on his butt, knees bent over the edge as he dangled his feet below.

Louis took a seat right beside him and placed a daring hand on his upper thigh, prepared to accept if Harry batted it away but not suspecting he would. To his gratitude, he’d guessed right, and Harry merely covered his hand with his own and leaned his head into the crook of his neck. Louis wrapped his free arm around Harry’s back and gave long pets up and down his spine, resting his cheek on his hair as they both stared down into the surreal grave before them.

Out of nowhere, Harry wracked the loudest sobs Louis had ever heard, and he jolted in shock, whipping around to crush him into his chest. “I’m so sorry, Harry. I’m so sorry,” he cried, taken down by the sound of Harry’s wails, holding him as tight as possible and letting him get everything out as it came.

“He was a piece of shit the whole time,” Harry choked as he skewered his brother with his blurry eyes, latching onto Louis like an abandoned infant. “I hated him. He was fucking terrible…” he continued, sounding as though he was trying to convince himself of these statements.

“But he was your twin,” Louis supplied, hating the fact that Harry felt he needed to conceal every emotion over Auron’s loss. Yes, he’d done terrible, merciless, and unredeemable deeds, but none of that changed who he was to Harry...especially in his last weeks.

“I just wish…” Harry began, cutting himself off because he wasn’t ever allowed to finish that statement and it didn’t feel right to do it now.

Louis flinched because he knew well of the ludicrous emphasis surrounding the phrase “I just wish,” and he wanted to ask how Harry would finish it now, but he didn’t push for it. Some things were more poetic unfinished, anyway. “What do you want right now, Harry?” he asked; if they didn’t know each other, Harry would probably say something like ‘reverse time,’ but as it was, he understood Louis was only asking what could be done in his power.

“Just hold me,” Harry whined, gladly falling with Louis when the King wrenched them backward to cuddle on the ground. He shoved his arm under Louis’ back and tightened both fists on his shirt, huffing his scent and letting his tears drop onto his neck. “I killed them,” he sobbed, gasping for air because he wanted this pain to feel as human as possible—he wanted to suffocate on air he couldn’t acquire.

“You didn’t,” Louis negated, his hands rested gently but firmly on the back of Harry’s curly hair as he stared at the starless sky above.

“I killed them. I almost killed you. I could have killed anyone—everyone—”

“I wasn’t going to let you do that, Harry. It’s why I was so adamant about fighting only you,” Louis said, trying to squash the uselessness of ‘what if’s.

“And I killed them when I was myself again,” Harry reasoned, pining for a redo because if granted one, he would shoot Auron dead without a word. If he’d known what his brother was about to do...nothing would have stopped him.

“You need to stop thinking like that. Auron killed Marley, not you,” Louis asserted, already afraid of this guilt cycle and how far it would drag Harry into self-hatred.

“Because I hesitated!” Harry shouted, rising from the safety of Louis’ neck to glare at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Don’t you see where this fucking goes? Can you not understand the direct correlation of events?” he growled, his fangs out and dripping as he and Louis hissed back and forth for dominance.

“Quiet!” Louis snapped after an immature excess of hissing, setting his sights and biting into Harry’s neck as a last measure of decompression.

Harry squeaked and went limp, giving into his fate and returning his hands to grip at Louis’ clothing, imagining his lover was drinking the stress out from his very skin—receiving his favourite endorphins helped a lot with that imagery. Azazel’s might have been the most powerful in the world, but there was something about Louixander’s that just...they were special to him. Full of love.

Louis was happy to have the taste of Harry back on his tongue where it belonged; it had been far too long since he’d indulged in a pleasure as simple as this, and he savoured each moment as it arose. Originals taking advantage of him could never get anywhere near the bliss of bonding with Harry—and this was even better than the dreams—this was heaven.

“I missed you,” Harry whispered, wandering hands finding the small of Louis’ back and pushing his shirt up until his palms found his smooth skin. “And don’t say I didn’t know so it doesn’t count. Because it does—it does count,” he added, gearing up to brawl over that point if Louis chose to discredit it.

Louis had no intention of arguing with Harry, and he swiftly pulled his teeth from his neck, rising up onto his hands to hover over Harry instead of crush him. “I missed you too,” he said simply, inviting the kiss that Harry upwardly lunged for in response.

They kissed for quite some time until they remembered exactly where they were and why, pulling apart and staring into each other’s eyes when imminent words failed. Louis couldn’t get over the recognition in Harry’s gaze; he’d gotten snippets of it in a dreamscape, sure, but that couldn’t ever compare to reality. Harry was in front of him (technically underneath), in real life, and he knew who he was. _Dreams do come true._

“Guess we should hurry this up,” Harry mumbled grudgingly, patting Louis’ side until he got the point and shifted over.

“Right,” Louis clipped, rising to his feet and collecting his shovel to return the mound of soil aside the ledge into the Earth. It almost felt weird to pour dirt all over Auron and Michael, who at first glance, didn’t look truly gone, but Harry seemed adamant to get it done at light-speed, using the shovel as more of a golf club to launch the dirt down into the plot.

“Fucking Auron…” Harry bit, his teeth clenched as he dealt with varying levels (and types) of anger. “He tried, but—he could never do it.”

“Never do what?” Louis asked, hoping his question wasn’t a stupid one, but Harry’s murmurings had been rather vague.

“Change,” Harry huffed, the poison in his tone blatantly meant for Auron and not Louis.

“ _Did_ he try?” Louis found himself adding, finding it moderately difficult to picture Auron actively trying to better himself and his behavior. Everything kind, nice, or positive that Louis had ever seen from him had been a carefully-constructed act to win over Harry’s trust, so he wasn’t at all familiar with a good-doing Auron Aelius.

“More times than I think you would guess,” Harry informed, pausing his actions to fold his hands over the end of his shovel and rest his chin upon said hands. “He used to have me watch him like a hawk when he was manic and make lists of all the...questionable things he said or did. Whenever his episode ended, I would give it to him so he could really see himself from the outside. We’d talk about it in detail, and he’d try to work better next time...whenever that may have been. With a mind full of the shit he was prone to do, he spent every morsel of his efforts on at _least_ not reenacting whatever was on the lists…”

“You never told me any of that,” Louis said neutrally, still doing his part because if they both stopped, progress would halt entirely and they were technically on a time crunch.

“I spent many centuries trying to convince myself Auron had no redeeming qualities. Made it easier to hate him,” Harry sighed, watching Louis with his shovel and noticing how neither of them had started covering Auron and Michael’s faces yet. It would have to happen sometime…

“You never could hate him, could you?” Louis mused, stuck merely imagining the kind of love he would have for his own twin, off-kilter-minded or fit as a fiddle.

“Are you nuts?” Harry snorted, closing his eyes before he rudely rolled them instead. “Of course I did, and I hate him now. When he killed you...I hated nothing more. I’d never felt hatred like that before and I haven’t since,” he explained, watching as Louis’ subtle nod and shrug became his response. “It wasn’t that I never fully hated him,” he continued, finally joining their soil repacking again because he didn’t want to make Louis do all the work. “It was that I never fully stopped loving him regardless.”

“Makes sense,” Louis said, pretty sure he’d feel the same regarding this nonexistent twin of his. He knew just as Harry did that neither of them were covering faces, so with a deep breath, he did it first, ignoring Harry’s fuming radio waves of discomfort so he didn’t let himself stop.

“I wonder what he’s doing right now,” Harry said, unsure of whether he’d said it aloud or in his thoughts.

“Trust me, even if I could explain, it wouldn’t make any sense,” Louis muttered, envisioning Auron in his typical forest clearing because it was the first thing that came to mind, only this time, he was a brilliant orb of light trying to reconnect with his journeying consciousness. That process took a bit...if time even meant anything at all in that place.

“Do you think Michael would be with him?” Harry asked, well aware Louis trying to explain the otherworld would do nothing for his understanding of it. Some things could only be learned and interpreted through personal experience, and this was at the top of that list.

“No. At least, I don’t think so. I think it’s a different place for everyone. It took...what I can only call non-stop ‘training’ to see into other...realms within...from mine. Passing boundaries isn’t a thing you could do on the first day. Mind you, _day_ is a relative term,” Louis chuckled, curious now as to how Auron would fare in that dimension. Would he learn his way around quicker than he had? _Would_ he find Michael? What about Azazel? And where did Azazel fit in all of this? Was that otherworld any part of _his_ world? ‘Nolaer’? While he’s at it, is there a God? What is the universe?

“Louis?” Harry asked, an amused look on his face he couldn’t help because Louis had almost begun drooling in thought.  

“Hm, sorry,” Louis laughed, shaking his head and letting the universe be—as if it would ever answer its greatest mysteries to an ancient King of men. “Wherever he is, he’s going to be a lot happier there than here. Regarding some things, at least. He’ll be free of his former mind’s dysfunctions.”

“He’ll be perfect, then,” Harry said with a relieved grin, once again getting hit with a wave of guilt for wishing well comings on his brother while the Sparrows were grieving two losses he had instigated. “But maybe he _should_ suffer…” he corrected, fighting himself on how to feel.

“Harry, I know what you’re trying to do, but it’s not going to work, so don’t try so hard. Just stop debating, it’ll get you nowhere. You care for him despite the shit he’s done. Let that be the end of it,” Louis stated, trying to break that as easily as possible because he didn’t want to come off as insensitive or worse, cruel. “Look, you could have returned the exact same energy he did, but you didn’t. You chose love. You _always_ chose love, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s better than I would have done,” he said, checking Harry’s face to make sure he hadn’t hit a nerve—as a matter of fact, Harry didn’t look displeased in the slightest, but rather, fond.

“He liked you a lot,” Harry said off-handedly, entertaining himself with seeing his own lover through the eyes of his twin. They took to Alexander for differing reasons, but those reasons all made up the same creature. Alexander was seraphic to all.

“No, I don’t think he ever did,” Louis contended with a light smile, sending a quick apology to Michael before dumping more dirt on his face. Traditionally, vampires were always burned, but for some reason, neither had even thought of that as an option. This grueling process had just seemed the way to go. “I mean, maybe he found me attractive, but—”

“What are you _talking_ about, Louixander?” Harry asked in unfiltered confusion, looking at Louis like he’d spoken the language of the originals. “He was obsessed with you,” he reasoned, knowing he’d be seconds from combusting if he had to list out examples of that obsession.

“He was obsessed with what I was to you,” Louis specified, referencing the contrasting remarks to Auron’s iconic pining he’d displayed in the dream towards the end of this conundrum.

“My one true love?” Harry asked, sharing a short smile with said creature until they both fixed their gazes into the ground. “He was jealous. He wanted someone like you for him.”

“Other way around,” Louis denied once again, catching Harry’s inquisitive glance but not meeting it out of nerves—this conversation was leading in a direction that could get crushingly heavy if he wasn’t careful. “Jealousy was the driving factor, but he wasn’t jealous of you—he was jealous of me,” he said surely, his lack of theorization sparking up almost visible dings of alarm from Harry’s frame.

“Are you saying he was in love with me?” Harry asked dumbly, trying not to disclose how he kind of already knew how true that was.

“I'm...saying he loved you a lot,” Louis stuttered, actually putting some thought into Harry’s question. _Was it that deep? ...I will never understand Romans._

“How would you know what was in his heart anyway?” Harry asked in a decently light-hearted form of suspicion, obviously knowing enough of Auron’s feelings for him that he couldn’t outright deny Louis’ assumption; he just wanted to know where it had come from.

“Believe me, his heart got put on blast in the dream—there’s no guessing game going on here,” Louis said, realizing a second too late he should have started that reply differently because now there would be a follow-up question.

“Dream...you visited Auron’s dreams too?” Harry asked, an odd prickling feeling telling him he should have some sort of problem with that, but there was really no logical basis for that side-thought.

“Only twice,” Louis said quickly, not wanting Harry to get the idea that he’d been sharing tea and crumpets with the older Roman the whole time he’d been hate-fucking Harry in their music room. “And only one of those times was successful enough to have an actual conversation...and it didn’t go well,” he said bitterly, smiling anyway because shocking or not, it had been the most Auron he’d ever seen him. Such an unpredictable, intolerable brat.

“What did he say?” Harry asked, now only curious as to what transpired that he hadn’t been present for. It was starting to make sense now—Auron’s panic attack when he awoke that one time especially. That had been Louis’ fault. _The pieces,_ he thought in wonderment. _They're finally falling into place._

“Oh, you know. ‘Not everything is about you, Alexander, but how very _you_ of you to think it is’ and so forth. That kinda stuff,” Louis said, choosing to leave out the bit where he'd shot himself in the head to escape the dream—taking all present outcomes into account, that part seemed a tad too relevant.

“Mm. I still...I don't know. He still liked you,” Harry insisted, beyond confident of this conclusion—nobody knew Auron better than he did. Harry knew Auron’s infatuation with Alexander hadn't been entirely fabricated, whether his brother tried to convince the King otherwise or not. That meant nothing. If anything, Auron only fought back because he wanted to make it as easy for Louis to let him go as possible. No common ground.

“Well too bad,” Louis muttered, looking down and realizing they’d completely covered them and all that was left was packing the ground. When did that happen? “I’m the most taken beast in the universe,” he explained, appreciating the sight of the strongest smile Harry had to give in his current condition.

“It’s good to see you, Louis—good to be back with you,” Harry replied, walking around the top of the grave when his dirt pile was finished to help with Louis’. “But I won’t be forgetting about the bite marks on your neck,” he warned, sparing them a sidelong glance of dissatisfaction.

“Don’t worry, I won’t forget about my ankle either,” Louis shot back, the joint in question still somewhat sore from Auron’s rebreak. “Or these,” he added, showcasing his forearm which bore two parallel scars from Hadrian’s merciless teeth in the alleyway.

“Great Olympus,” Harry drawled in regret, amazed he hadn’t automatically recognized Louis’ blood when he’d done that. He’d been given this entire world of memories that weren’t actually his; memories of a lifetime with Auron and Azazel; and everything else was background noise to him. Undoubtedly the strongest lure in the world, and he’d been under it for _weeks_.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Louis quipped, striking out and snatching Harry’s wrist to bring his arm to his mouth. He dropped his fangs and quickly reciprocated the same scars, smugly raising an eyebrow when Harry squeaked and gasped. Once he’d made them the same length, he released Harry’s arm carelessly, going back to his soil duty while Harry processed the last five seconds.

“That was sudden,” Harry slurred, his shovel nestled in the crook of his elbow as he held his bleeding wrist steady with his freed hand.

“At least you didn’t say ‘unexpected’,” Louis said with a shrug, licking at his fangs and smacking his lips around Harry’s lingering and delicious flavour.

“No, not unexpected,” Harry agreed, stretching his hand forward and back while he watched his new scars gradually begin to heal, leaving all the spilt black to stain his skin.

“I’ll give you your butt ones back too,” Louis informed, disappointed that enjoyable revenge had been in the dream and therefore, merely temporary. They deserved to be permanent.

“I wouldn’t mind a repeat of that,” Harry said, taking the bottom of his shirt and scrubbing it up and down his forearm to try and clean the mess Louis had made.

“As if that’s news to me,” Louis said, widening his eyes when he grasped the fact that they’d finished filling the hole they’d dug. “It’s done,” he said, waiting for Harry to glance from his arm to the ground beside him.

“Oh,” Harry said dumbly, pursing his lips and staring unblinkingly at the space they’d once viewed Auron at the bottom of. “Shit,” he suddenly cursed, digging around in his back pocket and cursing again when he seemed to confirm some suspicion of his.

“What is it?” Louis asked, going through the checklist of things they could have done and didn’t. They’d buried both vampires in the ground and filled the spot...what else was there?

“I forgot to bury this with him,” Harry said, swinging his arm around and unfolding his palm to reveal Auron’s sticky dagger glinting from the tiny spots of silver still visible.

“Keep it,” Louis suggested, unwilling to burrow back down just to return a weapon Auron wouldn’t have any use for.

“Keep it?” Harry repeated in shock, looking from it to Louis several times before he was sure his King hadn’t been kidding. “This dagger killed you once,” he reasoned, surprised Louis didn’t have a haunting issue with it.

“Harry, that dagger essentially belonged to me after Rome. Auron left it behind and I had it with me in my pocket for the whole journey. If I was uneasy of it, it never would have left those tunnels,” he coolly explained, pushing Harry’s opened palm back toward his hip until he got the point and wrangled the dagger back into his own pocket.

“That’s right, I forgot you were the one to throw it to me,” Harry said in wonderment, understanding why and how he would have forgotten a small detail like that—those twenty seconds or so after Marley’s murder were a gigantic blur.

“What did Auron say to you there at the end?” Louis asked, only having seen his mouthed ‘Bye, Lexy’ to him before the pain in his head had exploded.

“That he’s sorry...for everything,” Harry said, almost wishing Auron’s last words hadn’t been so beautiful—his brother just had to make everything as difficult as possible. It was in the wiring of his brain.

“Best thing he could have said, I think,” Louis said in approval, glad that end had been a memorably pleasant one—if endings of any kind can be _pleasant_.

“Yeah. I’m done here,” Harry announced, tossing his shovel over his shoulder for good and dusting off his knees.

“Should we uh…” Louis trailed, disposing of his own tool before joining Harry’s side at the foot of the grave. “Should we say something?” he asked, obviously choosing to follow Harry’s lead on this because he was the one it mattered most for.

“What is there to say? We already had farewells,” Harry said, speaking of the forgiveness he’d bestowed just before Louis had returned from a kilometre down the hill. Forgiveness wasn’t something he’d imagined would come into play so soon, but it had...now he was officially out of words for Auron. That was it.

“Just making sure,” Louis said breezily, starting to take tiny steps back to get the retreat going. “Let’s go find Evelyn and Molly then,” he said, now several feet away from Harry whereas the Roman himself hadn’t budged an inch.

“Who?” Harry asked in a daze, still staring down at the disrupted mound of dirt that would eventually settle in like it hadn’t been moved at all.

“The witches,” Louis said, unperturbed by Harry’s cluelessness because were he in the same position, he probably wouldn’t recognize two random names of people he didn’t personally know either.

“Right,” Harry said with a slow nod, fiddling with a ring on his third finger as his thumb and pinky endlessly spun it around.

Louis inhaled for a long sigh but didn’t let it out audibly, choosing to simply turn around and walk away and hope Harry would just follow him; much rather that than dragging him away in a headlock. He’d come to eventually, because Louis sure as hell wasn’t leaving without him.

As it were, Harry was organizing his kaleidoscope of emotions that came with the prospect of leaving his brother somewhere he’d brought him—somewhere he couldn’t ever move from—and never coming back either. And he knew that last part was true; after leaving Palatine Hill, there would be no force great enough in this world or the next to bring him back. Blacklisted to the nth degree.

He spent only a few last and final moments ingraining the sight of the grave into his memory, accepting whatever dreams or nightmares may come from its marking, and then turned away for good, waving once over his shoulder and then he was done. He walked briskly to catch up to Louis, who hadn’t slowed his pace even for a second, and interweaved their fingers when he reached his side, saying nothing but telling him a lot—he needed him.

“I love you, Hadrian,” Louis said just so he would hear it, sliding in closer as they walked as if they had a magnetic pull towards each other (that wasn’t too far from accurate).

“It’s Harry,” Harry said at once, fed up beyond words with his original title because this time around, his name had meant a whole lot more than a means to communicate with him—this Hadrian had been someone so far outside himself, he never wanted to associate with his title again.

Though, that wasn’t necessarily true—he just wanted it to be. He’d like to say with full honesty that he hadn’t been himself at all...but in actuality, he’d been _all too much himself_ —stripped bare in his purest, most basic form—and that was what he hated. His natural self had no place in his life anymore. All he wanted now was love and family; the other Hadrian wanted to dominate everything and everyone below his level of power. Not like he needs to say this, but that encompassed a horrific and destructive amount of creatures.  

“Harry. Harry Edward Styles,” Louis said in what could be considered ‘agreement,’ moving his outside arm across his chest to hook around Harry’s elbow. “If it’s what you want, I’ll never use that other name again,” he said, checking Harry’s profile for any non-verbal clues he could be giving as to how he felt about that. As expected, his face was entirely unreadable; Louis will just have to wait for words.

Harry didn’t say anything but he wasn’t sure if he would always feel the way he does now. It was quite possible that over time, with enough healing, he could learn to reconcile with his name and reintegrate it into his daily life, but at present, he really wanted nothing to do with it. He’d been Hadrian with Alexander for so long, but this was Louixander, and that’s different. They’d met each other with equally different names this time around—maybe that’s how it should be.

He knew he had to answer when they caught the outline of the gate that separated the temple from the dirt paths beyond, because it wouldn’t be long after crossing it that they’d call for the witches, so he went with his gut, reminding himself that if he happened to change his mind, Louis would roll right along with that decision. “I’d appreciate that. For now...could you tell everyone else for me?” he asked, trying to remember who had a habit of calling him his old name. Was it only Louixander?

“Of course, love,” Louis said without a blip of hesitation, circling his thumb around the bottom joint of Harry’s as they simultaneously stepped over the rusty gate (he won’t mention how much easier it was for Harry than him). “Should we call for them? I don’t know where they are, but I doubt they’d go too far…” he mused, searching the myriad of paths for the one that held the strongest scent.

“Go for it,” Harry said with a nod—what basis would he have to delay that now anyway?

“ _Abracadabra_!” Louis bellowed like some emergency code-word, listening closely for the scoffs of a response he was sure he’d make in their position.

Two scoffs indeed whispered through the wind, alerting him of their relative closeness all things considered, but a louder sound took their place—bubbly laughter to his right. He turned his head in happy surprise, eyes probably twinkling as he took in Harry’s giggling face; his shoulder hops and dimpled smile. It was just a bit of chortling, but nothing had ever sounded or looked so fucking beautiful.

“I feel like I’ve changed...maybe too much...but you, you’re exactly the fucking same,” Harry said behind continuous waves of throaty chuckles and fond head shakes. Here he was, debating how much he deserved to even exist after all the wreckage he’d partook in, and Louixander was calling witches with a kindist slur like nothing was wrong. Like their next destination wasn’t filled with more depressing anguish.

“I never change,” Louis said with a shrug, knowing full well that was a gigantic lie, but his confidence seemed to lull Harry’s exterior stress, and that was a start. Whatever he could do to comfort him, he would. Whether that meant pampering him in a luxurious bubble bath, or convincing the Roman he was fine and untarnished (so he could be the pillar of support Harry needed) when in fact he felt like pieces of broken glass on the inside...so be it. If he could hold it together through Erakus and Marley, then keep suppressing things until he bought some alone time, he’d consider the ruse a success.

“Suppose I'll thank Zeus for that,” Harry murmured, his head instinctively turning when the strolling witches jarringly snapped a twig or something under their feet.

“Did we interrupt something?” Louis asked with a smirk, his night-vision strong enough to clearly see the hot flush on both of their cheeks.

“Nothing we can’t pick back up later,” Evelyn said with a sly half-grin, causing an instant splutter to tumblr from Molly’s lips until she got her groove back and rolled her eyes.

“Are you ready?” the nice one asked, holding her chin high to make herself appear larger and more professional than her shameless lover.

“Yeah,” Louis quipped, leaning forward as he jutted his face out, giving the okay for it to be invasively touched and prodded at with magic. Molly reached out with slightly glowing hands and little electric sparks shot through his cheeks, leaving that odd pulling feeling behind like he had something stuck to him. He probably did, but he couldn’t see it—didn’t want to either.

“We’re going...here-ish,” Harry said with furrowed eyebrows, having dealt with the map business to show Evelyn where they were headed.

“ _Ish_? Ish isn’t good enough,” Evelyn scoffed as she bent down to get a closer look. “Damn night,” she muttered with squinted eyes, turning Harry around so the moonlight would shine down on the paper.

“Isn’t it here, Louis?” Harry asked, passing the map over as the focused Molly moved onto his face.

Louis took the paper and studied it, glad at least that it was a map of California and not the country entirely. He wasn’t sure where the fuck it had come from, because neither of them had thought to ask Agnes for one of her stash, but she’s a sneaky one; it’s quite possible she zapped the map into Molly’s bag on her own. Louis has learned not to ask questions around here. It didn’t matter. “To my knowledge, it was really close to the Nevada border, right? Like...on the eastern side of South Lake Tahoe?” he mused mostly to himself, thinking that Harry _should_ have the better idea because Louis had been kind of dying on the way there.

“Sounds right…” Harry said, his drawled tone officially becoming the most untrustworthy confirmation ever.

“If we get you to the east side of South Lake Tahoe, could you just find your way from there?” Evelyn asked, only tolerating the prospect of one more trip in this favour bundle. The vampires would start to owe them with any more. Which might not be a bad thing…

“Yeah, we can,” Louis stated firmly, unable to deny that even if they landed way off, they’d still be able to sniff their way to the Sparrows. Mountains were good for that kind of thing.

“Then on we go,” Molly announced, clearly having been holding back the spell this whole time as she noticeably let loose, shifting and bending reality for the split second of travel, and then?

Pine trees.

“Oh what the fuck—” Harry barked, both him and Louis flailing to cover their faces from the jarring light they’d popped into. It was sunset, and the darker side of sunset at that, with the sun being far below the horizon, but the sky being _anything_ besides pure black was unsettling.

“Oh relax, you won’t melt,” Evelyn said as she clutched at her stomach, apparently not finding a magical’s way of transportation very enjoyable, even if she was one herself.

Louis, for once, felt he could relate to her. “Yeah, we’ll try not to,” he said with just as much strain in his voice, wrapping his arm around the small of Harry’s back to hold him steady and more importantly, upright. The Roman hadn’t had the experience of magical travel as he had, and two unbalanced sways was one too many.

“Thank you for this,” Harry said as he threw his own arm over Louis’ shoulder, trying to smile at each girls individually but their features blurred under the stress of his valiantly refocusing eyes.

“Don’t mention it,” Molly said with a warm smile, turning to grab Evelyn’s hand before Louis spoke out to stop her.

“Wait, wait, are you going back to Siberia?” he asked, his eyes flicking to Evelyn when she made the obvious beginning movements of a vehement protest.

“Eve,” Molly said sternly, not even looking at her as she kept her curious gaze on Louis. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Well...we left quite a few of us behind is all,” he said as he realized the full extent of ditching without even speaking to Julius, Bernard, Petra, Oliver, Annabelle, Finley, Lawrence (he knew Lauren hadn’t made it), and all the other Guardians he’d met in England. What if no warlocks had helped them get home? They wouldn’t be stranded, necessarily, but it was certainly an inconvenience to be left there. And what had happened to Liam? Was Johnny still in the zamok? Had they gone with Anges and the others to Tahoe? He doesn’t remember anything…

“We can make one last sweep,” Molly asked, clenching her shoulders in anticipation for Evelyn’s grumble but luckily she didn’t get one. “I’m not a taxi, but at the very least, I can get anyone out of Siberia,” she promised, relaxing the tightened muscles of guilt in Louis’ body.

“That would be really amazing,” Louis said, relieved he’d thought of it even at the last minute. Some friend he was. “The only place they’d need to go is England.”

“Even better,” Molly said with a nod, then lacing her fingers with Evelyn and giving a cute little wave to say goodbye. “Bye—best of luck,” she said, and even Evelyn gave a subtle nod of her head.

Then they were gone.

“I don’t want to do this,” Harry said to their empty spots, turning his head with a sigh to meet Louis’ eyes.

“Neither do I,” Louis agreed because beating around the bush was useless, rubbing at his forehead with his palm and then looking around to see if he recognized even a single thing around. He didn’t.

“I wouldn’t blame them—if they hated me,” Harry added calmly, obviously not too calm on the inside if going by the nervous twitch in his eyes.

“I also wouldn’t blame myself if I punched you in the face,” Louis groaned, stepping around to come face to face with his lover and slam his hands down on his shoulders.

“Why are you pretending like this isn’t is a big deal?” Harry retorted, his hands curling around Louis’ wrists but not expelling them from his body.

“I’m not. It’s huge, and it’s fucking heartbreaking, and I hate everything about it. But you need to stop the way you’re thinking. If you don’t get rid of this guilt now, it’s going to eat you alive,” he reasoned, omitting the mention that ‘life’ wasn’t something Harry even had.  

“Can’t you see it’s too late for that?” Harry begged, those pesky tears threatening to fall once more even before they’d arrived.

“Just cling to me—I’ll get you through this, I swear,” Louis whispered against Harry’s lips after rising onto his tiptoes, pressing them to his Roman’s for a brief pause in time until some of his rusted joints opened up and he felt less fragile to the touch. “A shattered heart of yours is something I can fix.”

“You’re the only thing that can—” Harry said, thinking it over and editing his previous ending, “—potentially have that power.”

“Harry,” Louis murmured as he ran his fingertips down his lover’s cheek, smiling just to behold his beauty and then leading the way toward where his gut was telling him to go. He figured he’d listen to it. “I was born with that power.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gods, now they have to face the Sparrows. Gonna be tough for everyone. WAaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh I hatee thissssss :'(


	23. Ferris Wheel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrapping shit up took longer than I thought.

Harry and Louis had what felt like aimlessly walked for at least twenty minutes before either of them spoke, both still reflecting on where they’d come from and what they’d done. The sun had gone all the way down, thankfully, and the land they’d come to began to incline. They knew the basis of what that might mean, and with a few more leaf-crunching steps westward, both their eyes found the dirt path they indeed knew led to the Sparrows’ abode. Their eyes matched their noses simultaneously as well, both tilting their chins up to inhale the air of distant familiarity. Unmistakable.

“I can’t believe we actually found it,” Harry said after a moment of humming a sigh, his hand naturally finding the back of his neck to rub at it nervously.

“Our instincts are good,” Louis said, shrugging as he turned his head to study Harry’s expression—one of pure protest. “Harry, we have to face this,” he said gently, knowing all too well how easily Harry could be riled up, especially right now.

“I know that!” Harry snapped in a whisper, hunching his shoulders up to his ears and then forcibly relaxing them. His throat already felt tight with the itch to cry, and he hadn’t even stepped a foot inside the building yet. How was he supposed to face the thing he couldn’t even face facing?

“Don’t do it for them,” Louis suggested with a thumb-point over his shoulder, making sure he won Harry’s eye contact before laying the seeds. “Do it for Erakus and Marley.”

“How would you know they would even appreciate my presence?” Harry challenged, trying to find every reason in the world as to why this was a bad idea and he shouldn’t involve himself any further than he already had. He had _caused_ this; was it not an insult to waltz into the aftermath and offer only an apology?

“Are you seriously using that kind of logic right now? They risked their fucking asses for you, _time and time again_ , and just because they didn’t make it out in the end doesn’t mean all those trials meant nothing. I was there. We were all there. To save the _world_ , not just you. This, and I know it sounds crazy, is actually bigger than you. You owe them your fucking respec—”

“Zeus, Louixander,” Harry huffed as he slapped a hand over his lover’s mouth, giving him a deep frown that conveyed his irritation. “You act like I’m not thankful for what you all have done. Surely you know that’s not true,” he grumbled, taking his hand off when Louis’ expectant eyebrows wordlessly ordered him to.

“I know you’re thankful, Harry. But you’re also being selfish,” Louis said, turning away from Harry and starting the journey himself if no one else would. “Let’s hurry—the sun is down, and I can’t imagine they’ll want to wait an hour for us to walk up a fucking mountain,” he said, quickening his pace when he heard Harry’s footsteps to drive him even further along.

This time, the speed they used made the distance they crossed feel like nothing, and they were all of a sudden standing just outside the door of the main house, both hands poised to knock but staying still. They leaned in and listened to the sounds of sniffs, and they _both_ almost turned back, but they knew their scents had undoubtedly reached inside by now, and these creatures were their family and friends. There was no turning back.

Especially because Martin flung the door open.

“Ah, shit. You’re okay,” Martin said in a soothing voice that seemed to be directed at himself for panicking. He threw his arms around Harry and didn’t let go until he got a reciprocation, accepting the half-assed embrace before moving onto Louis.

“Of course we’re okay, love. What about you? Harlock? How is every—”

“Come in, come in,” Martin urged, pulling both Elders inside by their sleeves and shutting the door.

Louis glanced around at the living room to the right of the door, noting the empty couches and withering fireplace and concluding the event would not be held here, looking then to the kitchen where a steaming teapot sat alone on the stove, presumably having been used within the last ten minutes or so.

“Are they outside?” Harry asked, his nose already suggesting to him they were.

“They are, yeah. This way,” Martin said, lowering his voice as he walked through the homey kitchen to reach the door that led outside round the back of all separate Sparrow houses.

Louis held Harry’s hand and stepped down the pair of steps from the kitchen to that odd sort of low-class drawing room, with its long rectangular table and shelves of liquor nobody but humans drank. He can remember a somewhat simpler time wherein Alexander had surfaced quite violently and instigated a brawl in this room, both lovers quarreling over the table and trying not to tip over creatures’ chairs while they did so.

Good times, right? Easier? Or had they been too plagued with ambiguous future? Were _these_ supposed to be the good times now that the enemy had been ‘thwarted’? Was this not _worse_? At least in those earlier days, though infected with the cutthroat itch of worry, they’d been a fully functional and present family. Now they were cracked—cracked like the pavement in the inner cities of New York. Now they were bleeding.

Passing through the back door introduced yet another memory to Louixander—when he’d flung it open in a trance to run straight into Auron’s arms. He’d been standing just there, under that tree, holding his hand out and inviting everlasting peace that didn’t exist if Louis only accepted him. It had existed and then some to Louis’ addled mind at the time, though, and everything could have ended that night, but Hadrian had fought for him. He’d demonstrated a fearsome show of guardianship that Louis had only tried to reciprocate by stalking him across the world.

 _Stop thinking about that shit,_ he told himself, forcing his mind into the only place he wanted it, whilst at the same time not wanting it at all—the present.

When they rounded the corner of the main house, everyone they loved were in sight, stood around sporadically as though they were attending a perfectly ordinary campfire, and two graves weren’t being dug by the late Erakus’s distraught brothers. Tones were hushed, faces were troubled, but when Louis and Harry finally walked onto the scene, they were greeted at once by Zayn, Niall, Tanner, Harlock, Jenner, Jet, and Stacey.

“There you boys are,” Stacey murmured, throwing her arms around both her son and his lover to welcome them to this unfortunate event.

“Hey, Ma,” Louis sighed, hiding his face in her neck under her hair and staying there until she removed her arms.

“Why don’t you go say hello to Veronica, hun, we’re about to start,” Stacey whispered, thumbing her son’s cheekbone and giving a small yet encouraging smile.

“Mm,” Louis hummed to comply, searching the back area for only a moment before he found Veronica sat with her husband on an overturned log, the two sharing a blanket while their sons dug the graves. Glancing around that same section of the yard, Louis then discovered Erakus and Marley’s locations, in the forms of two blanket mounds to the right of the digging plot. “Fuck,” he muttered, forcing his feet to take him to the huddle of Sparrows and express his deepest regrets.

He could feel Harry’s looming presence behind him, seemingly sticking close to suck support straight out of Louis’ aura, and he was more than willing to offer that to him, even slowing his pace so it didn’t look too much like Harry was racing to keep up. But did he even have much support to give? He felt like shit too. _Better not let that show._

Veronica looked up when she caught them in her peripherals, and she left the log immediately, passing the blanket she’d accidentally taken with her to William so she could greet them properly. “Harry,” she whined, pulling him into her arms before he had a chance to make claims about how he ‘didn’t deserve’ it. “You look like you’re seconds from insanity,” she continued, holding him tighter when she felt his shoulders shake with silent cries. “You didn’t do this, Harry.”

“I did,” Harry whimpered, standing as frozen as a statue in the woman’s arms as she tried to convince him of something he would never believe.

“Harry,” William said, depositing the blanket onto the log as he stood to make his own approach. “My son followed his heart in the end. As much as we wish we could have changed that, he had made up his mind, and nothing was going to stop that decision. I know my Era. He was a true Sparrow. If he’d survived that battle, this only would have happened another way...by his efforts too,” he asserted, placing a simple hand on Harry’s shoulder because he wasn’t especially close to him and didn’t know what else was appropriate.

“And Marley?” Harry challenged, not needing to mention how that death had transpired because all of them had seen it—seen his cowardly hesitation. And if they hadn’t seen it real time, they’d figured out pretty quick what had happened. It was no secret. This was because of him.

“Was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time,” William answered, not knowing Auron either but able to put together that had it not been Marley, it could have any one of them instead. “Auron only went for the nearest one of us—and I know what he tried to make you do…”

“Harry, if it had been Erakus…” Elijah cut in, sparing a glance to his younger brother before looking back to his parents and the Elders, “...or Niko asking me to do the same thing, you bet your ass I would have hesitated. I don’t care what kind of fucked up shit they may have done in the role Auron had, killing them per their wish is an impossible scenario I can’t even begin to imagine,” he said, unseeing of the sure and concurring nod Niko made behind him.

“ _Especially_ if the last few weeks leading up to it had consisted of a lot of quality time together,” Susanna seconded, her arm around her younger sister looking firmer than comfortable as she likely envisioned herself in the same position.

“Please don’t bear the weight of this yourself,” Veronica pleaded, knowing she’d be unable to cope with and eventually let go of this hurt herself if she knew Harry would be out there somewhere fixating on his exaggerated accountability for eternity.

“You have to know that I can’t not do that,” Harry said, staring straight into Veronica’s eyes to really convey how he felt about this.

“For my sake. I can’t move on if you’re stuck,” she begged, deciding to reveal her inner thoughts because it looked like Harry needed them.

Harry’s face fell and he dropped his head down, ruminating on those words because they made less sense than Azazel’s motives, and those were _still_ fuzzy even now. Did Veronica really care at all for _his_ feelings regarding the death of _her_ son? Confusing or not, the words made him think in a different light, and if the Sparrows would really be put out by his lack of cooperation, he would try his hardest to obey their wishes. “It won’t be tomorrow,” he warned, tilting his head to look back at Veronica without fully straightening his spine yet.

“Heavens no,” Veronica agreed, obviously feeling the same herself about the long period of adjustment and mourning ahead of them before reluctance acceptance would rear its overdue head. “I don’t have unrealistic expectations—but that time will come, and you’ll let it,” she said sternly, making it clear her words were more than a mere ‘request.’

“I’ll be there with him no matter what,” Louis said, finally adding himself to the mixture to assure Harry would have someone to watch over him—not just anyone, either, but him. One of if not _the_ only creature in the world Harry would ever actually _listen_ to.   

“I know you will—we’re lucky you’re still here,” Veronica said straight from the heart, her memories stocked with plenty of examples wherein Louixander had been the shepherd to guide her family to safety throughout each of their adventures. She’d grown to care for Louixander like extended family, and he’d been more than dependable. It mattered not the harsh chances of war; he’d done all he could with what he had.

Louis literally had nothing to say to that. Any response he felt he could give was out of place in this situation, and certainly no humour belonged, so he simply nodded his head once, hoping it didn’t come off as rude. Luckily, Veronica smiled, her face illustrating she understood his nerves, so that was that.

Louis hadn’t noticed, but Harry had strolled over to Erakus and Marley, and was now sat on his butt beside them with crossed legs, his temple resting on his fist that was supported by the elbow on his knee. It looked like he wanted to start speaking—like he was holding words back behind his lips—and Louis didn’t want him to be alone with his thoughts, so he walked over to stand behind him and survey the situation like a guardian angel. Some angel, though—he should have his wings revoked.

Harry was indeed debating whether or not to recite an unplanned but personalized message to his late friends, and only the thought of how pathetic it would sound made him question the intelligence of that idea. Would his company be put out by his meager attempts to express regrets? Would Louis not nag him incessantly until he shut up? Would that stop him, though?

“Talk if you want to,” Louis whispered, being his usual perceptive self and nudging the center of his back with a knee.

“Erakus,” Harry stated clearly, egged on far enough by Louis to just let go and say what was in his heart. He noticed at once that he got nearly everyone’s attention, subtle or blatant, but that wasn’t as intimidating as he thought it would have been. “And Marley,” he added, sure even under the blankets who was who, and that he was sitting on Erakus’s side. “Most things I promise can’t be kept. Promises of keeping people safe, always being there for them, never hurting them...I fail a lot. And a collection of those failures ultimately led to this. That’s something I can’t take back. But I can promise you—without chance of ever falling through—that I will spend the rest of my days existing for you; keeping you in my thoughts; and maybe somehow making it up to you. I’m sorry…” he finished, standing and walking away from them before he lost it.

“Oh, Harry,” Martin whimpered, tackling his old master in a fierce hug that he wasn’t going to let him refuse. “Harry…” he repeated, searching for the right words and sighing into the Roman’s chest when he found none.

“I...I’ll talk to you later,” Harry stressed to his one and only creation (he didn’t count Louixander), his tone laced with a vow which verified that talk would definitely be happening when they had the time.

Martin wanted to tell him not to worry about it, because he already knew it would concern the shit he and Tanner went through in the tunnels, but he also didn’t think brushing Harry off was the best thing at the moment, so he pulled back and nodded, making room for Zayn to embrace him next when he approached.

Louis made rounds of his own while the group consecutively held his lover and comforted his tangible personification of guilt, spotting Cináed and Agnes, and Max and Øvind sitting together at a backyard table like they were on some double date together. “Hey,” he said when he closed the distance, leaning against the table but not taking a seat in the bench because he knew he would moving on soon.

“I have a feeling I won’t see you again after this, but I want you to come find me when you feel up to it,” Agnes said, both her hands cradling her bump as Cináed cradled her in a similar manner.

“Of course. I’ll have to meet your little one at some point. He’s too fascinating to pass up,” Louis said with a smile, remembering the details of the battle Anges had involved herself in and bringing that up with his next blink. “Agnes, what in the _world_ —”

“I was watching the battle, and I saw a warlock catch you in the net. I know I shouldn’t have, but you would have died if I hadn’t, and I couldn’t live with that,” she informed, pointedly keeping her eyes on Louis so she wouldn’t fall prey to Cináed’s disapproving scowl.

“How, though? You and Jenner were in the zamok. How did you see that far?” Louis asked, having not had the time to calculate all the details while in the heat of battle. Now that he really thought about it, though, nothing about it made any sense.

“A crow.”

“ _Pardon_? A crow?” Louis asked in confusion, catching the use of Auron’s iconic tone in his voice and clearing his throat to get rid of it.

“Yes, a crow,” Agnes laughed, hiding her grin when her confirmation only made the mystery more perplexing. “I can watch the world through the eyes of a crow I connect to. I found a crow before any of you left, and I’d already trapped it in my spell before you got to the river. So, I saw everything. Some of the warlocks knew about the bird, and they kept trying to shoot it down, so I served as a diversion as well,” she said, chuckling to herself over the incompetence of everyone who had tried to put a stop to her bird’s-eye spell.

“That would be why the tops of the trees kept exploding, huh?” Louis mused, recalling the sight of tree leaves and pine needles shooting up in a straight line as though someone had launched an invisible arrow (or perhaps hundreds of tiny darts) up to the sky.

“Precisely why, yes,” Anges confirmed, letting him process the information and lead the conversation himself before she said anything needlessly irrelevant. 

“And Jenner…?”

“Said if he didn’t help and something happened to you, he would never forgive himself,” she explained, her eyes automatically traveling to the orange-haired warlock in question as he futilely dried more tears that hadn’t stopped since he’d discovered his friends hadn’t made it. Harlock was doing everything he could to comfort him, but that wasn’t exactly a reachable goal.

“I see...sounds like Jenner,” Louis muttered, planning out the instance wherein he’d slap Jenner across the face for his stupidity, because Harlock definitely wouldn’t, and the damn fool deserves it. Not anytime soon, but one day…

“We’re both sorry, but in very slight measures,” Agnes said, apparently trying to excuse her actions and save her pride at the same time.

“I’m glad I’m here, Agnes. But you should know that I’d only have died anyway if you’d lost your life,” Louis noted, a steady gaze on Cináed because that creature was indubitably that hypothetic cause of his hypothetical follow-up death.

“That’s why I worked fast,” Anges said with a smirk, training her expression back to neutral when she remembered the environment of which she was in—the emotional denominator of sadness that was only broken with fond smiles of remembrance, not smirks of wit.

“Glad _you’re_ all happy— _we’re_ doomed,” Max grumbled as he pointed between Cináed and himself, idly playing with Øvind’s hair as he spoke.  

“We’re not doomed, Max—”

“Yes, we fucking are,” Max interrupted, staring at Cináed like he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “We’re thinking of the same home, correct? Can you imagine what he’s gonna be like when we go back—”

“Let’s not talk about Azazel, please. It’s done with,” Cináed hissed, closing his mouth quickly before he accidentally sprayed endorphins everywhere.

“It’s _not_ done with—it’s _suspended_ ,” Max stressed incredulously, lowering his voice and showing the first real shred of decency Louis had ever seen.

“If you don’t shut up—”

“Hey guys?” Elijah called, wiping his forehead (though there was no sweat to remove) as he dumped his shovel a few feet away from the holes, waiting until Niko had taken his last dig and done the same before continuing. “We’re about ready…”

Louis straightened up from his lean against the table and whipped around, spotting his group and Harry and approaching them at once to distance himself from the talkative originals with skewed priorities.

Everyone else gathered around in front of the backyard tables and took up whatever open spots there were, while the Sparrows stepped out across the way closer to the holes so they could address the crowd. In Louis’ peripherals, he noticed the Sparrow household humans and other vampires exiting the second house down to join the event; he didn’t understand why they hadn’t been here before, but perhaps they wanted to let the creatures who’d witnessed the tragedy get their emotions out first before they added their own.

He looked over in the end and saw the kind-hearted and perpetually helpful Lori, her arm slung over another recognizable girl’s shoulders, and their eyes met in the briefest of flashes, but she was clearly taken aback by how much Louis had changed since they’d last met. Louis didn’t blame her—he was a different species.

“Everyone out?” Lotta asked the male vampire who had led the group, eyes turning to him automatically as he coughed and nodded.

“Yeah, we’re all here,” he said, his eyebrows cinched in a permanent troubled line that everyone else outside seemed to bear as well.

“Okay, then,” Veronica sighed, taking up the position of speaker despite her obvious wish to curl into a ball and not speak for months. “Just recently married, my son and his husband didn’t make it through the battle together. My dear Erakus, for those who have not received the full story, chose to sacrifice himself after witnessing Marley’s death. Marley was attacked by a warlock,” she informed just in case there were some here who didn’t know.

Jenner cringed in guilt at the name of his species. It had been bad enough to learn of the death in general, but to learn he could have maybe stopped it had he been quick enough, or persisted Agnes to let him go enough...well, it hurt. A magical had destroyed the welfares and existences of two of his best friends—he almost wanted nothing to do with his own identification. It wasn’t right.

“We could not have stopped Erakus or his choice,” Veronica resumed, glancing over her shoulder toward the blanket that lay gently over her impulsive and formerly lovesick son. “And though it is a hard thing to accept, I urge you all to remember him in the way he would have wanted—with fond memories and perhaps wistful joy. Anything else, and I believe he would consider it an insult,” she said with a short chuckle, opening the floor for anyone else behind her to take the position of speaker.

William happened to be the creature to replace her, and then each of the Sparrows said their piece one at a time, ending on a blubbering Susanna when she couldn’t bear to say one more word. Harlock went next, having been his caretaker, essentially, for many years, and Jenner spoke right beside him, each throwing in either short stories of humourous content, or messages of praise and well wishings.

Tanner and Jet, as expected, followed in their footsteps since they were the other two of the company who had initially come from Harlock’s mansion, and Louis smiled the most at the tales from Jet’s perspective—it seemed they pranked her _a lot._

Zayn, Harry, Niall, Liam, Johnny (apparently Agnes _had_ brought those two), Martin, Stacey, and Louis himself gave it a go as well, all being members of the friend group in which the husbands used to thrive, and the only two originals present (obviously since the ones of ancestry to them were not) gave silent prayers, likely to ‘send them off,’ and now words needed to give way actions.

Nobody wanted to do it first, but the brothers Elijah and Niko took it upon themselves to carry them down into the holes they’d dug, sniffling as they did so and pretending not to notice everyone staring at them. It was a slow process, considering they wanted it to flow seamlessly, but with their vampire strength, it was still over swiftly, and they hopped back out much like Harry and Louis had after placing Auron and Michael.

Everyone of vital substance to the fallen crowded around the edges of the grave for one last goodbye, but no one said a word. Everyone had something personal to state, so they did it in the privacy of their minds. Louis especially was thinking faster than he could keep up with, his mind glued to the concept of the otherworld and what their positions were within it at this very moment. Had they found each other? Would they not for a cuttingly long time? Who knew? _They do,_ he thought with subtle looks to Max and Cináed; he knew they wouldn’t tell him, but their knowledgeable auras were hard to discredit. _They know._

Louis had to back away after a while of standing over his friends, and his movement seemed to break a non-magic spell in the others, his whole group scooting away from the edges and turning into each other for hugs and support. That in itself initiated Elijah and Niko’s last job, and with heavy hearts that made them look as though they were wielding two-ton shovels, they began to pack the dirt back into where they’d taken it from.

Kyösti took that time to begin a quiet hum of a tune the Sparrows seemed to know, for after he’d hit five notes of it, the rest of their voices filtered in, the whole family singing a song that was now clearly in Finnish, and clearly well-known. The mournful tone in which they sang it gave the sound a haunting chill, but there was beauty in it still—an artful cry for loss.

Louis closed his eyes and let the words seep into his body, on top of every syllable though the language was one of the few he did not know, because he felt he should remember this moment—he should always remember the song of Erakus and Marley...the pain and love of it. Harry’s arms appeared around the front of his midsection and he leaned back on instinct, swaying side to side at a crawling pace to match the lax rhythm of the song’s stanzas.

Candles were lit and unrestrained tears fell during this period, turning the backyard into one giant form of group therapy for every griever, and only the originals had no tears to shed—but they wouldn’t, would they? The song in the air repeated itself at least three times before it was wrapped up, and that probably meant Niko and Elijah were done.

Louis, for some reason, felt nervous to verify that, but he opened his eyes anyway and yup: the holes had been filled. He would not be seeing them again. “Shit,” he whispered, a new wave of emotion billowing from his gut and trickling from his eyes, causing him to whip around and hide himself in Harry’s chest until it passed.

Harry held him tight and let himself be used, seeking comfort in the same way as he latched onto his lover and brought his emotions to meet his King’s. Thankfully no one had told Harry to ‘not’ when he had made his expectedly apologetic speech (the second one), because he’d been in desperate need to just get it out, and he felt a lot better now. Not _okay_ , but better.

A bright flash of light was picked up behind both Harry and Louis’ eyes, and their lids flung open to inspect the cause, finding out William had ignited a bonfire to gather around and creatures were already flocking to it. The crackling sounds of the wood came right after the visual clues, and it was somewhat comforting in its own right, like nature’s snare drums.

With no other option or plan, Harry and Louis followed with their group to a lengthy log surrounding the bonfire, but of course only some could actually be seated, so they stood behind preemptively, not in any way requiring the position of seated to get by. The log seat went to Cináed and Anges, naturally, and the humans Jenner and Johnny with their vampires. The rest of the three logs were taken up by the Sparrows and their tenants (mostly the human tenants), and conversation sparked individually amongst everyone at once.

It wasn’t what Louis had expected, but all the commotion had him walking up to Harlock in the spur of the moment, determined to express his condolences for the state of his body post-battle. Harry followed, since he’d also been absent for the talk his group had probably already had while they were in Rome, and they both knelt side by side as Louis tapped on Harlock’s good shoulder.

The gimped vampire wiggled around on the log, and Jenner did too, the weight of everything that had happened casting gloomy shadows on their faces that weren’t normally seen.

“We’ll get you a hook soon,” Louis said, choosing to crack a joke in the place of more heavy sympathies to maybe lighten the darkest mood this family had ever seen.

“...What?” Harlock asked after a few moments of blank staring, his overwhelmed mind already registering everything at half the normal speed.

“For your stump,” Louis explained, nudging his chin at the arm that had been wrapped in a sling over his shoulder, probably by Lori upon their arrival. “We’ll get you a hook for it—then you can be a real pirate,” he said with a smirk, holding back his laughter in case Harlock was egregiously unamused.

Harlock kept his deadpanned expression for another tense bundle of seconds, but a snort finally broke through, easing the serious demeanors of both him and Jenner as they let themselves relax. “It’s always been my dream,” Harlock joked, his sarcasm written in the air before him in brilliant neon colours.

“Really, though,” Jenner piped after his giggles had subsided, pointing toward his lover’s arm but not coming into any close physical contact with it. “We _should_ figure out what to do about that.”

“Yeah, but not now,” Harlock said, waving his good hand in a carefree manner to physically set the thought aside. “I can’t even begin to think about that right now.”

“I’m really sorry, Harlock,” Harry said, unable to joke around as Louis had because he hadn’t gotten that type of spunk back yet, and he probably wouldn’t for a while.

“Not your fault—literally,” Harlock stressed, flicking his head to the right to refer to Louis’ mother standing adjacent to them. “This happened saving Stacey. I have no regrets.”

“Well I certainly do,” Stacey protested after realizing what was under discussion, getting silenced once again by Harlock, who did not want the focus on him anymore.

“Stacey,” Harlock drawled, shaking his head until she sighed in acceptance. “It’s okay.”

After that was out of the way, Harry faced the other demon he was plagued with, rising from his crouch and nabbing Martin and Tanner, and pulling them away from the bonfire toward the spot where Auron had coaxed Louis into his arms.

Louis joined the trio as they made their way to the treeline because he was the missing piece of the stolen quartet—the ones who had woken up in those fucking tunnels—and they all simultaneously crossed their arms when their formation was made, giving no outward notice to that as Harry began to speak.

“I remember every second of that; what he, and his Elders did to you; and I’m so sorry I didn’t crack faster. I shouldn’t have...shouldn’t have let...I made things worse several times, I—”

“Harry,” Martin said, placing a hand in the center of Harry’s chest and curling a fist around his shirt when he tried to back away. “Those times aren’t a thing I want to extensively talk about. I hold no resentment toward you for that, and neither does Tanner, and you _need_ to drill that into your head. The entire situation was fucked up beyond belief, and all _three_ of us are victims of that, you _included_. At no point did you hold the hammers yourself, and we’re still here,” he asserted, feeling weird about that when Erakus and Marley couldn’t fall under that lucky umbrella. “You were beaten too, don’t act like some untouched bystander. _Please_ drop this—for all our sakes,” he begged, stepping closer to Harry to rise to his tiptoes and stare deep into his eyes.

“You know it’ll be in the back of my—”

“Mind, yes, and all our nightmares, but we have to move past it. Have to. You hearing me?” he asked; he was being uncharacteristically stern with Harry, but after the traumatic experience he’d gone through (that Tanner and himself had already been given the time to process), a firm hand needed to be utilized to guide him, or he’d be bouncing off the walls in a panic.

“Then you know what’s in my heart,” Harry said, his tone on the verge of acceptance and leaning heavily on a compromise.

“You’ll always be sorry about it,” Martin answered correctly, holding Harry’s face in his hands and depositing a kiss to each cheek. “And we’ll always forgive you,” he vowed, stepping away from Harry just in time for Tanner to throw his arms around him to reiterate everything Martin had just said with his body.

Harry sighed like he was expelling the anxieties from his throat, his every muscle lengthening from their contracted stance because right then, in that particular moment, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. He knew without contemplating it that it would take a sizeable amount of ups and downs to even get close, but the proof that it was _there_ , waiting for him when he was ready, eliminated eighty percent of his hopeless concerns. It was possible.

 

\---

 

The ceremony, or hang-out if that was more applicable, ended when the fire did, which was undoubtedly planned from the start, and people made their way inside all houses in groups of whatever, all in varying classifications of mental states. The Sparrows passionately insisted they (meaning everyone that didn’t live there) stay for the night and get rest when the sun rose, and Louis couldn’t argue with that logic.

He hooked his arm around Harry’s elbow and walked slowly with his family back into the kitchen of the main house, merely changing the location of their outside bonfire as they chose spots to sit in the fireplace-lit living room. They had a lot of time before sunrise, but they had an unending list of topics to cover in that time span, so not a moment would go unfilled.

 

\---

 

Louis woke up in a constricting embrace, and the first thing he thought was Aguta had gotten to him again. He thrashed immediately and kicked the presence with all his might, flailing out of the covers and preparing to hiss in the face of the inappropriately smug immortal.

“What!” Harry shouted, freezing Louis’ movements in a nanosecond and ripping the covers off his self-destructing lover.

“Sorry,” Louis croaked, meeting Harry’s eyes sheepishly and sluggishly lying back down as though that violent opening act hadn’t happened at all. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Been sleeping with others a lot?” Harry chuckled, his true emotions jumping somewhere between playful and annoyed.

“Not sleeping. Been waking up with others at times—unwarrantedly,” Louis said, tracing circles against Harry’s bare chest with his finger. They’d both gone to bed earlier than they would have thought, but their friends had insisted they get rest whenever they’d refused, so they’d eventually given up and fallen onto the closest bed they could find. They hadn’t done anything sexual, either—too stressed from the sequence of events beforehand—but they’d stripped down to nothing just to feel each other’s skin on their own. It had been too long.

“The ones who gave you your bites?” Harry guessed, knowing he’d have to work on letting that go immediately or a plethora of fights would cloud the attainable future of harmony.

“Just one of them...Aguta,” Louis added, wondering if name-dropping was necessary, but he remembered Aguta and Harry’s short hormonal face-off before the original had left, so...Harry could probably put a face to the name by now.

“He was attractive,” Harry muttered, his eyes narrowed and glaring at the ceiling as he reluctantly admitted that fact.

Louis scrunched his lips and said nothing, afraid that no matter what he said, Harry’s reaction would be less than ideal. Not that Louis would blame him if he were to ruffle his feathers, but such a thing was best to avoid, wasn’t it?

Harry released a long sigh and daintily held Louis in his arms, taking in the moment like he’d been doing non-stop since his ‘wakening’ and committing it to memory. His untrustworthy, extremely weak and gullible memory. He didn’t trust his mind at all anymore; Azazel may have been the most powerful in the world, and maybe it was true that no one would have fared well or overcome his compulsion, but there was no way to _not_ feel like a piece of shit after getting used for so long.

“I hear rummaging,” Louis yawned, training his eyes toward the door and concentrating on what lay down the hall—in the kitchen and living rooms. The main house was just now waking up, and the titters of weightless feet told him that much, but he didn’t know who all it was. The scent of Harry underneath him had never been so strong, and his attention span couldn’t breach past that quite yet.

“We should leave soon,” Harry said, taking his own advice by scooting himself out of bed and toeing around lazily at the hardwood floors for his clothes.

Louis grunted and flipped himself over until he was successively off the fluffy bed, flicking the bedside lamp on and snagging his own clothing from where it had gotten pushed under the frame. “Why?” he asked, knowing he might be opening a can of worms by asking Harry what his motives were for shit.

“I just can’t help feeling like we’re intruding right now. They already have a lot of people, and we should just grab our group and spli—”

“Harry,” Louis sighed, shaking his head as he hopped up and down to hike his pants up to his hips. “You’ve lost your skill to read people. If they didn’t want us here, we wouldn’t have accepted the offer to say—because we would have _known_ they didn’t want us. I feel the same as you, though—I do want to get home—but you gotta remember the world is still a mess. We can’t exactly relax until all that is taken care of, so we should be considering this a break,” he reasoned, diving into his shirt and thrusting his arms through the holes. “I’d rather not go stomping back out into the thick of it while we’re still—”

“About that,” Niall announced, busting the unlocked door open and revealing himself with nothing but a towel around his waist.

“You gonna apologize, or…?” Louis drawled, eyeing the blonde and his horrendous manners with a warning in his gaze.

“Sorry, but you clearly didn’t hear the news,” Niall said, either unaware or uncaring of the water droplets he was sending to their deaths on the floor.

“What news?” Harry asked, concluding his dressing process by shucking on a largely sized honey-brown jumper from the wardrobe against the wall—in other words, not his.

“The Guardians went nuts last night once who I think was Julius spread the word about the leader’s death. Your assumption was right; they really were running around like chickens with her heads cut off,” Zayn materialized to say, shooing his still-wet lover down the hall to take care of himself before meeting any more company.

“Is Liam up?” Harry asked, already making his way to the hall so he could check for himself.

“Yeah, he and Johnny are in the kitchen—there’s something you should know—” Zayn said, darting to the left when he grasped Harry wasn’t stopping for anything. Harry indeed blew right past him en route to the kitchen, and Zayn turned back to Louis at the foot of the bed, thumbing at the empty air where Harry had passed with a deep-set brow. “No different?”

“No,” Louis said quietly, his concern on that lower than everyone else’s because he knew Harry could eventually bounce back from anything. “It’ll be a while, but don’t worry—I got him,” he assured, buttoning his lavender cardigan (also found from the wardrobe) and passing Zayn himself. “What should we know?”

“Uh,” Zayn quipped, darting out of the scene once Louis was actively moving toward the kitchen. He’d find out momentarily.  

Louis made it to the kitchen in seconds, taking in the scene and stopping in his tracks. “What’s...going on here?” he asked, mostly referring to Liam and Johnny’s crying faces, and Harry’s unreadable stare at the floor.

“Julius is dead,” a voice murmured from the doorway to the den, turning out to be Harlock with Jenner under his only whole arm.

“W-what?” Louis asked, the news hitting him like a blastwave because of _course_ , when everything seems to calm down even for a second, peril always lurks...and it _always_ strikes.

“I just talked to him last night,” Liam grunted, looking like he wanted to destroy everything in sight than to sit by and quietly take it. “I have to go back to England,” he announced, making Harry push himself off the counter and step up to him cautiously.

“Are you sure?” Harry asked, disinclined to let Liam out of his sight if he was only going to make rash decisions that could get him killed too.

“Don’t worry—I have Johnny to look out for,” Liam said, that serving as a swear to be careful in itself. “But England especially is seeing a lot of resistance, and without Julius to guide the way, and Petra and Bernard’s grief, someone needs to take that place,” he reasoned, knowing his logic was hard to argue with.

“We should get back to Scotland anyway,” Agnes seconded as she waddled into the kitchen from the opposite side living room, using the counter to pull herself along until Cináed appeared behind her and made himself useful for her movement.

“Finally,” Cináed sighed in response to her long-awaited wish to leave; he’d tried so many times earlier in the morning to convince her to, but she’d insisted she couldn’t go anywhere without farewells, and if they could just get them out of the way now, that would be great.

“Liam, what about—”

“I know, babe,” Liam assured knowingly, clearing his throat before shouting down the hall: “Ezra! Astair!”

The two named barreled out of their room they’d shared with what smelled like Zayn and Niall, faces frowning in a way that proved they’d heard the news by now. “Leaving?” Astair asked to make sure, glancing from Liam to everyone else in the room, then back to the only vampire he answered to.

“Yeah, get ready. Meet outside,” Liam said, removing himself from the kitchen in a flurry as Johnny scrambled to keep up, and the rest took their sweet time. It wasn’t out of laziness, but Agnes couldn’t move fast to begin with, and she wasn’t in as much of a rush.

“Go, I’ll be there in a second,” Louis urged to Harry, pushing him after his friend because it was likely they wouldn’t see him for a while after this. Harry followed his suggestion and then Louis turned back toward Ezra and Astair’s room (they’d left to make their bed like good guests), accidentally knocking into Jenner on the way and straightening him out with a quiet ‘sorry.’ He gripped the door jamb of the guest-room and swung himself inside, crossing the floor to throw his arms around Astair, a vampire whom he’d grown to like after their mountain climbing in the Ural Mountains. “Fair winds, my Dyatlov buddy.”

Astair laughed breath out his nostrils and tightened his arms around the King, sparing himself the time though he was pressed for it because he felt quite the same way about the Elder in his arms—as terrible as that first meeting with Kazimir had been, they’d gotten along splendidly, and everything after that had been memorable as well. “We’ll have to go back someday—crack the code or something. Demand Kazimir tell us the secret.”

“Maybe not Kazimir, but I’d love to—so long as we don’t go in a group of nine,” Louis said with a shudder, pulling back from Astair and giving a one-armed hug to Ezra too while they began the walk to the front of the house.

“Yeah, fuck nine,” Astair agreed wholeheartedly, linking arms with Ezra and matching his pace down to the last detail.

“Have you two—?”

“Yes,” Ezra stated bluntly, all too familiar with that kind of tone. And yes, he and Astair very much _had_. “Life is short. Even the immortal kind,” he muttered, feeling too weird about dropping Marley and Erakus’s names that he didn’t, but his reasoning—and the fact that it pertained to them—was obvious.

“You’re right,” Louis said, opening the front door to the yard and smiling at Lori on his way out. He stepped out into a gathering of more people than he’d expected, including all the Sparrows, his whole group, and some of the household vampires he’d seen last night at the bonfire. He walked quickly to Agnes’s side, who was surrounded by her original lover and Liam’s group, and cleared his throat, determined to buy himself some time before she began the transportation spell.

“Louis,” she cooed fondly, reaching out and hugging only the tops of his shoulders (her stomach prevented her from getting much closer).

“I— _we_ —the entire world couldn’t have done any of this without you. There were times where this outcome was in your hands alone, and you...you just...are incredible,” he praised choppily, doing his best around something that no words could accurately paint quite right.

“She is, isn’t she,” Cináed said lowly, giving a smile to Louis like they _hadn’t_ quarreled constantly over the course of their camaraderie.

“I’ll miss the both of you,” Louis said, daring to inch his way toward his maker in the hopes that he would accept a hug.

Cináed didn’t even hesitate. He reached around Alexander’s body and slapped a hand in the middle of his back, yanking him in and then placing that same hand on the back of his head, tussling his hair because that was as affectionate as he would ever get to someone who wasn’t Anges, and soon, his son.

“You’ll have to come back at some point,” Agnes said, not even checking with her lover before making that offer, but she didn’t feel she needed to—Cináed’s current behavior was allowing that for him. “You’ll have to meet this one,” she said, tapping on her stomach when Louis broke the embrace and turned to face her.

“Of course,” Louis said, finding Harry a few feet away with Liam and noting the undeniability that he was listening in on their conversation. “We’ll make that trip happen no matter what,” he vowed, waving even from his close distance and leaving them be to direct his last farewells to Liam and Johnny.

Those went quickly because they were both too wound up to let themselves converse much, and after Jenner gotten his last goodbyes in to his magical mentor and exchanged telephone numbers, Agnes raised her voice to inform the company she would be starting the spell.

Everyone backed away as she touched the faces of the departing creatures, and as unanimous shouts of parting words were sounded, the six of them zapped right out of mid-air, leaving everyone present staring into the place wherein they’d just been.

A few moments of silence reigned (especially from the ones who had never witnessed that kind of magic), but conversation limped back into the scenario when the shock passed, and Harry walked next to the Sparrows, speaking quieted things to them that Louis wasn’t too eager to hear; he could guess.

He wandered for a bit until he came up behind Zayn and Martin, standing on his tiptoes to drape his arms over their shoulders. He didn’t need to with Martin, for he was substantially short, but Zayn was a tree.

“Hey, King,” Zayn greeted, linking his fingers with Louis’ to help support him and giving his forearm a rub with his free hand.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been further from that title than I am right now,” Louis groaned, stepping away from the boys so they could turn around and face him.

“Louis, even God would have lost his title after all the shit we’ve been through,” Martin surmised, cringing from the phantom pain in his ribs that he figured he might be feeling for the rest of his time on this plane.

“I feel like shit—I didn’t get to say goodbye to Marley, Erakus, _or_ Julius...I knew this shit could happen, but I just didn’t...I didn’t—”

“I feel the same,” Martin said, throwing a hand up to cup over Louis’ shoulder while Zayn seemed to be in the midst of a ‘moment of silence.’ “It’s crazy, you know? How quick that all happened. Julius is a shock; history lost one of its infamous,” he said lowly, recalling the times his educated friends in France had spoken of the great deeds of Alexander and Julius among others to amp them up for their failed revolution. They’d seemed so far off at that time as a human, but he’d met and befriended both. The world was a strange place.

“Technically, to the world, historical figures are already lost. Only we know differently. Us and vamp allies, that is,” Louis said, feeling a twinge of shame that the world would not mourn for the loss of Julius because they believed him long dead.

“It doesn’t matter that it’s unknown,” Zayn argued, shoving his hands in his pockets but promptly taking one back out when Niall approached to put his arm around him. “History still lost him.”

“Are you talking about Julius?” Niall asked, eyes finding Louis’.

“Yeah,” Louis said, his head hung a little bit lower than usual because it felt wrong to keep it proudly lifted—there was no pride here.

Harry walked back at that moment from conversing with Veronica and William, but he didn’t go to Louis, merely completed the open spot in the circle directly across from him.

“What was that?” Louis asked, having stayed true to his decision not to listen to any of it.

“We’re getting a...a bus,” Harry answered, catching the little eyebrow-raises he’d expected to see from everyone. “Two vampires here are agreed to go find a working bus for us. It was suggested to me first, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea...this all started with a bus anyway,” he said, testing the waters because he wasn’t sure how his friends would take it.

“Where are we taking it? To Idaho?” Louis asked, of the opinion that they still had things to do before actually going home.

“Yeah—I can’t do one more fucking thing in this world. I just want to go home,” Harry sighed; he’d tried to care that predators were still adamant on fucking things up, but the knowledge that the Guardians were winning against them (the tragic loss of Julius aside) kind of satisfied him enough to step aside and let it go. The only question was whether or not Louis would accept that answer.

As it were, Louis was searching his thoughts and the details of the backseat resignation for the honour. He couldn’t find a glimpse of honour in hiding and letting their like-minded Guardians take care of everything, but the only other thing to wonder was if he even _cared_ about that loss of pride. He did not. “Let’s go home,” he said with a nod, snorting when every future bus-rider released a sigh of relief. “You’re right...we really have done enough.”

 

\---

 

They waited only a little longer in ever-flipping periods of silences and hushed conversations until the engine of a distant bus puttered through the mountain, turning like meerkats toward the noise and preemptively bunching together to board.

The Sparrows shuffled up to them on the dirt path and stood there awkwardly, unable to administer neutral goodbyes of ‘Cheerio, it’s been fun’ because it had been the furthest thing from.

Louis noticed their hesitation and took the lead, turning around and curling his arms around Veronica while his own mother stepped closer to follow his example. “We’ll talk again in a few months, okay? Shit’s too raw right now,” he said, pulling back to find out what her take on that would be.

“I agree. For what it’s worth, Louis, you saved the world,” Veronica said, not too lost in her grief that she wouldn’t recognize the overall good that had been done here.

“It was all Cináed and Harry—and all of you as well—I merely brought everyone together,” Louis explained, disinclined to take the sole credit for something so grand. It had been the work of everyone to turn the tides, and not one person alone deserves the credit—nor does one deserve the blame.

“I give it to Cináed,” Harry added after accepting William’s careful hug. “I may have stabbed my maker, but it wouldn’t have done anything at all if Cináed hadn’t have worked so quick.”

“Well yes,” Louis agreed, sliding to the left when his mother all but shoved him out of the way to hold her fellow mother. “We couldn’t have done it without the originals—but we also wouldn’t have fared well without each other. Everyone sees that, right?” he asked, spinning in a slow circle to include everyone around in his question.

“Best teamwork I’ve ever seen,” Tanner said with a slight smile, no doubt invalidating that praise in his head because their teamwork hadn’t saved their friends when they needed it most. Great as it may be, how magnificent was it really?

The blinding lights of the bus then appeared up the hill, and Louis heard at least two hisses of shock before everyone faced the other way, the vampires all hiding in their elbows and tuning the outside world out until the lights were extinguished. When that happened, they slowly straightened up and turned around, and Louis laughed out loud to see another bright yellow school bus parked a few metres away. The odds.

“That’s familiar,” Martin noted, letting Tanner lean into him because the poor thing could hardly stand now that he didn’t absolutely need to.

“She’s good for around a thousand miles—if you drive her with a light foot,” one of the Sparrow house vampires said as he hopped out of the bus, his companion bouncing down after him.

“Thanks for that,” Louis said genuinely, relieved he hadn’t had to worry about acquiring a ride when they were all so unmotivated to do anything.

“It’s no problem. Have a safe trip,” the tall immortal quipped as he and his friend went back inside, probably keeping things light intentionally because he knew no one wanted constant sympathy or pity for something they were already haunted with. Louis can respect that.

“So...this is it?” Niko asked, appearing before Harry and Louis with Elijah at his side.

“Only for now. You’re daft if you think we won’t be back—maybe for Christmas?” Louis said randomly, not needing a time machine to tell him he wouldn’t be busy during the holiday. Vampires (except these ones) don’t give a fuck about holidays.

“That would be lovely,” Lotta rasped, mirroring her nodding husband and officially setting it in stone.

“Okay, Christmas then,” Louis said, embracing both the Sparrow surprisingly-only-slightly-older-than-their-family vampires, then moving onto the sisters last.

“Sometimes you were really mean, but sometimes you were kinda nice,” Kaisa remarked, making her older sister Susanna elbow her between the shoulder blades.

“Thank...you…” Louis said unsurely, reflecting on himself and wondering which bits and frames from throughout the journey Kaisa had documented to make that assessment. There had been a few times he can think of wherein he’d lost his temper, but can he _really_ be blamed for that?

“Never mind her shitty attempts at goodbye. Thank you for always being someone I could look up to. I’ve gained quite a bit of courage after all this, and your leadership was kind of the only thing to truly drill it into me,” Susanna said gratefully, coming in for her momentary hug and swiftly backing away to save time.

“Not much I can say to that,” Louis admitted, ruffling the girl’s hair even if he might not be familiar enough with her to do that. “Thanks for putting your trust in me when I was a fucking mess half the time.”

“Call when you get to Idaho?” Veronica asked, fretting as any mother could for the unproblematic journey of her former partners in battle and otherwise.

“Even if they forget, I won’t,” Stacey promised, the mothers’ lock of eyes giving off the imagery of signing an unbreakable contract. It made sense, though—Stacey would know how important that was to Veronica.

“Bye for now!” Louis quipped with a grin, skipping to the bus and running up the steps before he ended up taking the longest...which was known to happen. He took one whiff of the stuffy bus and scrunched his nose in displeasure, falling into the first row of seats (because unlike the last redone bus they’d rode in, this one was an actual school bus) and listening to the chorus of words outside that had already been said a hundred times before.

Soon enough, one by one, his group filed into the bus, and when Zayn entered last, he shut the door behind him. He and Martin played a quick round of rock-paper-scissors to see who would be stuck with the driving duty (at least for the first round) and Martin won with a whoop of relief, walking hand-in-hand with Tanner to the row across from Louis’.

Harry collapsed onto the bench and timbered down upon Louis’ lap, dragging his hand over his legs to shove it under his far thigh. Louis chuckled and pet Harry’s hair, letting his head fall back onto the seat as Zayn blasted the engine on, still hot from the drive up.

Niall decided he’d rather stand beside Zayn than sit without him, so that was precisely where he was positioned, leaning against the dashboard, and the Sparrows called out and waved as the bus rolled away. Louis waved back, but he knew how lackluster it probably looked, what with his arm feeling like it weighed five-hundred pounds, but he had no doubts they understood. Shit, they probably felt the same. Everyone could use a break.

The bus continued to move down the hill until the top and the Sparrow households were completely out of sight, and the silence in the bus was eerie—morbid. If it weren’t for the obvious hum of the engine, and a few foresty sounds his ears could pick up, the their vocal silence would give off the impression of a morgue. Which...he doesn’t have experience with, but he knows Harry, Zayn, and Martin do. What a fucking mess that had been.

“I can’t believe it’s done,” Louis found himself saying, not necessarily intending to but not regretting it either.

“Been a long time coming,” Harry said from the pillow of Louis’ lap, flipping himself onto his back to stare up at his love’s face.

“Don’t know what to do with myself now,” Louis confessed, knowing it would be close to a culture shock to just go back home and not have to sprint to a new location because they’d been ‘discovered’ by enemies. That had been his recent life for a long enough time to leave a mark behind—what now?

“We live like we did before...only this time, we won’t be doing it in fear. There was always a tiny fear in me that Auron would return and fuck with me. The whole time I spent alone before you came back, I always worried about him in the background. Now, not only do I have you, but I don’t have to stomach that fear, because it doesn’t apply in reality anymore...it’s honestly ideal,” Harry rambled, having stared at the ceiling of the bus until he was done with his speech to look into Louis’ eyes.

“So why does it feel like shit?” Louis asked, voicing precisely what was in Harry’s, and everyone else’s thoughts, and he didn’t need to ask to know that.

“Because we’re missing people,” Harry answered, bringing his hand to face and shoving his thumbnail under his index nail like cleaning dirt was actually more important than eye contact. Louis understood, though—no one wanted to face it.

“And we’ll always miss them,” Harlock added from his bench with Jenner, only catching Louis’ gaze because out of the Elder couple, only Louis’ head rose above the seatback.

“That we will. Not too often, but every once in awhile, I forget how long you knew them, Harlock. This must be hardest on you,” Louis said, taking a look at just how short the short end of the stick had been at Harlock’s end. Not only had he, a one-eyed vampire, lost a hand in battle, but he’d also lost two of the five beings from his Lockhart household he’d brought along. _And_ , though it hadn’t happened, he’d also come close to losing Jenner in that stressful few seconds before Harry blocked Azazel. That poor bastard.

“Listen...we’re going to have a service for Erakus and Marley too at my place—more of a get-together to share memories and stuff...but I don’t want to do it any time soon. I want as much as you to unwind from all this. And I don’t want to have anyone out and about if predators are still on the loose. So keep me updated with Liam and the rest of the Guardians for news, and when shit calms down completely—and we’re all ready—come to Lockhart, okay?” Harlock requested, having planned this since standing around their graves last night.

“That’ll be nice,” Louis supported, letting everyone else voice their rsvp’s while he played with Harry’s hair. He didn’t know if it was just him, but it looked like the saturation of colour in Harry’s hair had faded. The once warm brown now looked as if it had a layer of dust over it—not quite grey, but not at all vibrant. He didn’t know what to do about that either, and he didn’t fancy bringing it up, so he’d wait until Harry said something about it, or he’d never mention it.

“Which way are you going?” Harry asked, presumably to Zayn, who caught on and twisted around in the driver’s seat to throw the answer over his shoulder.

“I’m taking the Nevada route, but I’m going up into Oregon by taking the 95. We might have to catch a motel, but hopefully that’ll be in Boise—at least in Idaho,” the Pakistani said, accepting the sudden presence of Niall when he swayed and barreled into his lap before he face-planted onto the bus floor.

“That’s good. Takes less time through Nevada anyway,” Harry said, hearing the shuffle and fall without knowing the details of the sound and turning his head in his friend’s direction. “What was that?”

“Niall fell,” Louis whispered to Harry, grinning to himself over it because the sight had been objectively amusing, totally understandable happenstance or not.

“I feel like this bus might as well have hit me at full speed before boarding,” the blonde mumbled, curling into Zayn and fighting hard to stay awake under constant waves of exhaustion.

“I can relate,” Harlock sighed in his pitiful body’s condition, probably mourning over all the ways his existence would now shift with only hand to navigate it with.

“I’m so sorry, Harlock. It was all my f—”

“Stacey!” both Jet and Harlock snapped, both of their faces impassive and stern to show their disapproval over her never-ending self-blame.

“Alright, alright,” Stacey sighed, meeting her son’s eyes and giving a shy smile.

Louis returned the smile and turned back around in his seat, staring out the window and weaving his fingers with Harry’s when the Roman stole a hand and held it to his chest. He felt tired, but he doubted he could sleep; nevertheless, he closed his eyes and wished for it, and before he even knew it…

 

\---

 

“Hey. Lou. Louis. Alexander,” a voice called, waking Louis from his unexpected sleep and bringing him back into the bus from the dreamland of which he’d been walking.

“Yeah,” he croaked, squeezing his eyelids before he snapped them open because otherwise, he didn’t think the opening would be possible.

“We’re at a motel in Boise—sunrise is close, so let’s get rooms,” Zayn said, moving on down the rows to wake everyone else who had fallen asleep at what he remembers to be the exact same time.

“Harry,” Louis whispered, repeating his name in a hiss and shove when his lover showed no signs of recognition.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Harry mumbled, clearly still in sleep despite Louis’ efforts and responding through a barrier of clarity.

Louis didn’t enjoy the tone in which Harry had pleaded his statement because it sounded like he might be dreaming of Auron, so he used desperate measures and pushed Harry all the way off his lap and onto the floor, hoping that would do the trick because he certainly didn’t want to punch him.

“The fuck!” Harry groaned as he shot awake, slipping on the bus’s sticky floor every time he tried to make his lanky limbs follow his mind’s wishes.

“Sorry,” Louis said as monotonously as a flatlined heart monitor, reaching down and heaving Harry back onto the seat before he stood himself up to stretch his legs. “Let’s go,” he urged, stepping widely over Harry’s knees and taking a look around at everyone else.

“We good?” Zayn asked, reminding Louis very much of some parent chaperone who had volunteered themselves on a student fieldtrip. The school bus obviously didn’t help.

“As good as we can be,” Louis yawned, making a sweeping gesture with his arms to tell everyone to walk out before him. His friends obeyed the request and filed out in a straight line of shuffles, and Louis turned his back to address only his lover, who was sat quietly and in deep thought Louis could almost hear in his own ears. “Babe,” he said, waiting the five long seconds it took for Harry’s eyes to drag up his body to meet his concerned ones.

“I’m okay,” Harry said automatically, moving to stand when Louis’ hand appeared over his collar bones and pushed him back down.

“The fact that you said that before anything else is proof enough that you’re not—and I don’t expect you to be,” Louis said, kneeling beside the bus bench and taking both of Harry’s hands in his. “I’m not asking you to do anything but stay at my side.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Harry said, sounding almost defensive about it because he wasn’t sure if Louis honestly believed he would split or not...where would he go?

“I mean in your head. I know you can get lost in your thoughts, and you have been this whole time, and I want you to let me help ground you. I want you to look to me as you once did for strength you don’t have,” Louis explained, needing to get this out of the way because lately it seemed like Harry didn’t think he required help of any kind, and that simply wasn’t true. “You can’t do this alone...so don’t be alone. Be with me,” he said, moving one hand up to hold Harry’s face.

Harry’s eyes closed upon contact and he lowered his head, curling his fingers around Louis’ wrist and soaking in the moment. “My mind is a burden to myself,” he said quietly, his eyes moving to the bus door when he heard slight and hushed bickering just outside the vehicle.

Louis heard it too, but it was only Harlock and Jenner, and that didn’t surprise him at all, with how on edge they’d been since right before the battle. He kept his eyes on Harry and waited for him to float back to the conversation, and it wasn’t long before he did.

“At least until we get home, I don’t want to push that burden on anyone else. Martin won’t have it, and everyone is so quick to say it’s not my fault, but that’s not what I want to hear,” Harry confessed, wishing someone would punch him in the face for all he’d done under the lure. His “fault” or not, it was hard to move on like nothing had happened when you vividly remembered every second of it.

“I don’t know that I can tell you what you want to hear without feeling like shit over it,” Louis admitted, cringing at the thought of convincing Harry he was in fact in the wrong when he hadn’t been able to help it.

“What happened to all your anger? You were so angry with me at times—where did that Louis go?” Harry asked, finally removing Louis’ hand from his face and straightening his spine in a moment of his usual courage.

“You’ll have to drag him back out,” Louis said with a shrug, almost regretting giving Harry the code to crack him because he could be the victim of just about any means now.

“Guys! This motel is abandoned,” Harlock said with a knock on the door, continuing to tap a rhythm of insistence on the acrylic plastic until they replied. “Come on, the sun won’t wait for us.”

Louis bounced off his heels and stood up, grabbing Harry’s wrist and pulling him out of his seat before he had to wait another lengthy amount of time for movement. They walked with the others into the accurately abandoned building and took rooms on the bottom floor as they saw fit, each group distancing themselves quite a ways from the other.

Harry shut the door of their decided room with more force than necessary and waltzed to the neatly-made bed, snatching the sheet out from under the duvet and hooking it over the curtain rod of the only window. Luckily, this particular motel’s faces were north and south, meaning the sun wouldn’t blast through the window at any given time in the day, and Louis figured that was one blessing he could count out of this mess.

“I’ll be honest, Louis,” Harry began, throwing his shirt over his head and onto the floor at his feet before falling down with a bounce on the rock-hard mattress. “I don’t know that I’ll ever get over this.”

Louis hadn’t moved from his spot leaning against the unused desk until now, but that statement was the thing to do it; he kicked off with a swing of his hips and approached his lover, bending over forward to establish impossible-to-miss eye contact. “You _can_ ,” he stressed directly into Harry’s non-present soul, wondering just how long he’d have to encourage this very claim before Harry believed him.

“What in the world makes you think that?” Harry snorted, staring unflinchingly into Louis’ eyes and putting aside all thoughts of their beauty to focus on the topic at hand.

“Because you’ve gotten over worse,” Louis reasoned, already having a good inkling that Harry was gearing to refute that.

“Like what?” Harry challenged, living up to his legendary predictability.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Louis mused, looking up to the ceiling as he feigned consideration. “My death?”

“Your d—you think I got over your death?” Harry laughed, placing his large hand on Louis’ face and softly yet firmly pushing him away. “You think I ever got over your—I’m _still_ not over your death, and you’re right here!” he cried, slapping both hands over his face and shaking his head side to side as he chuckled madly into his palms.

Louis couldn’t help his sigh but he did strive to keep it on the quiet side, stubbornly stepping back to Harry and shoving his knees between his lover’s locked ones until he gave way and he was able to cuddle up to him. “I _am_ right here,” he confirmed, taking Harry’s wrists away from his face and placing them around his back instead. “And I’m never letting you go again.”

Harry might have been tense before, but with that little nudge of physical encouragement, his arms independently flung themselves around the dip above Louis’ hips, and he smashed his face into his torso, holding on for dear life as Louis rhythmically pet his hair. The tears were a given, but like Louis’ annoying sigh, he kept those hushed as well, only allowing the involuntary shake of his shoulders to prove his state.

“Tell me you believe me—I want to hear it,” Louis said softly, twisting his fingers through Harry’s locks to use as leverage if he should receive another maddening lack of a reply.

“I believe you. I can’t not,” Harry blubbered, barely noticing Louis had begun to hike his own shirt up and over his head. He had to notice, though, when Louis began fiddling with the button of his jeans, and he gazed upward to decipher the point of such actions. “What are you doing?” he asked, only doing so because as they were lifeless, no love-making could transpire.

“I just want to feel you again—like last night,” Louis said, using the little break in Harry’s hold to undress them both and guide Harry back onto the now slightly-unmade bed.

Harry sniffed his tears away and wrapped his limbs around Louis when he joined him, letting his fingers drift soft as paper down his clean arm in reverence. He remembered all too well the sight of this skin covered in the blood of both him and his twin, and after having showered at the Sparrows’ before bed, seeing it cleansed of that was like a gift. He never wanted to see something so horrific again—maybe blood, but certainly not his own.

“Home will do a lot for me, I think—just the thought gives me the illusion of a heartbeat. That was when I was happiest...in the music room,” Harry said, leaving out the bit where he specified the music room in the _dreamscape_ because Louis had been there too and would be flooded with the same memories.

“That’s when I was happy too,” Louis seconded, humming to himself when he recalled how very _unhappy_ he’d been as well. “Well...all things considered,” he corrected, unable to stop the hand that snuck around to grab at Harry’s arse, specifically the cheek he’d vengefully marked up with his fangs.

“That still made me happy,” Harry assured, smiling into Louis’ hopeless mess of hair and flexing his gluteus muscles to lighten the mood.

Louis grinned and patted the skin under his hand, wrenching his arm back up to hang over Harry’s broad frame. “I’m sure it did, freak.”

Harry snorted and found no reason to reply (since it was a true statement), responding instead with a short kiss and naturally falling into silence with his lover, alone and together, just how they liked it. Home was still a jump away, but cuddling in a bed felt enough like it that he soon drifted off into a peaceful sleep he hadn’t planned for—Louixander has that effect.

 

\---

 

“Do I have to break this door down or what?” Zayn’s voice cried from out in the hall, startling Louis who had been floating somewhere midway between realities.

“Try it—see what happens,” Louis grumbled back, getting himself out of bed because it wasn’t like he would choose to stay over going home. “Come on, Harry, get up,” he said, playing the bongos of Harry’s torso until he giggled and slapped his hands away.

“Where are we?” Harry croaked behind a yawn, scratching his scalp and slowly blinking his eyes open. “Oh yeah,” he quipped, catching the clothes that Louis tossed to him and clumsily putting them on.

“We’ll be in the bus,” Zayn informed, his and everyone else’s footsteps rhythmically retreating down the hallway.

“How long do they think it takes us to get up?” Louis asked petulantly, wondering if they had some unspoken reputation for being heavy sleepers. Maybe it was their age...still, he couldn’t remember a time where he hadn’t been easy to wake throughout their journey to Siberia...even before they knew that’s where they would end up. All along, it had secretly been a journey to Siberia. He’s rambling his thoughts, isn’t he?

“I like my sleep. Peace and quiet,” Harry admitted, not acknowledging all the adventurous things he’d done as a different creature because they weren’t true to and didn’t fully represent his historical laziness.

“As do I, my ancient one,” Louis said with a pat to Harry’s crazy hair, forcing his feet into his shoes with a grunt and dragging his half-dressed lover out to bed to finish as well. “I’ll be in the bus,” he said with a laugh, turning as if he would leave before two strong arms wound around his chest.

“I don’t think so,” Harry murmured, kissing down Louis’ neck and delighting in the fact that it made him squirm. It was such a simple act, but it was really seeing a reaction—it _had_ been far too long.

“Then hurry up,” Louis teased, elbowing Harry in the low part of the upper arm (that was essentially their height difference) and breaking free of the embrace to open and hold the door ajar.

“Alright, alright,” Harry sassed, using his top speed to complete his mission and scooping Louis up into his arms on the way out the now opened door.

“Whoa!” Louis exclaimed as he was swept up off the ground, grabbing onto Harry and staring at his somewhat amused profile. “I’m not legless, you know,” he laughed, accepting his fate regardless because this was more animated than Harry had been since he’d gotten him back.

“ _Careful_ , Louis,” Harry sternly scolded, shooting him a look of cringe-worthy disapproval. “You have to watch your words—you might upset Harlock,” he said, trying hard to hold back a smile that seemed adamant to show itself.

“Oh right, how could I forget?” Louis chuckled, scoffing because he knew Harlock would be far more offended at Harry’s joke than his choice of wording.

They continued to intermittently giggle to each other until Harry kicked the front door open and stepped into the chilly evening air, bouncing along with Louis in his arms all the way to the opened and awaiting bus.

“‘Bout time,” Zayn grumbled as Harry hopped up the steps with their one and only King.

“Just drive, yeah?” Harry said in a tone that could be construed as rude were they not with close friends.

“Aye aye, Capt—”

“If anyone here is a Captain, I believe _Harlock_ will take that role,” Louis said as Harry set him on his feet and went back to close the bus door.

“Aw, still?” Harlock groaned, his arm still hung in a sling even though the wound was healed because he probably didn’t want to deal with it at all until he got home.

“Of course still. And it will be still until the end of time. Face it, Harlock—you’re a dreaded pirate,” Louis teased mercilessly, opening his arms preemptively for Harry to slide into when he sat down.

Harry shot Harlock an apologetic look and burrowed into those welcoming arms, grabbing the undersides of Louis’ knees and pulling them up and over his lap so they could have a proper cuddle.

“You know what? For your sake, Louis, I may just get a hook. We’ll see how you like it when I slap you in the face with it,” Harlock said, raising his voice on the last statement as Zayn turned the key of the bus and woke it from its similar slumber.

“That would hurt,” Louis said flippantly, still engrossed with all his senses in the picture of beauty before him.

“That’s the point,” Harlock muttered back, only giving up the fight when Jenner’s lips met his own to distract him. It always worked.

“At least Niall isn’t singing _Bus Stop_ this time,” Tanner reasoned, bringing everyone who had been there back to that moment.

“Careful, or I’ll start,” Niall warned, spinning around on the pole by the driver’s seat like a stripper to give a sultry glare to Tanner.

 _This is nice,_ Louis thought, looking around at his friends (plus his Mother and Jet) and smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. So much terrible shit had happened, but inside this bus, you could almost assume it had been a dream. A shadow lies over the group, and that was undeniable, but the support and comfort everyone pulled from each other eclipsed that stress for the time being...and it was just nice.

“Maybe I’m the one who actually wants you to,” Tanner joked, cackling when Martin wrestled him down onto the bus seat trying to cover his mouth.

“Over my currently dead body,” Martin growled, turning the wrestling match into a tickle fest that brightened the inside of the bus with pure laughter that no one had heard in quite the long minute.

“Did it really happen?” Harry whispered, evidently lingering within the same thoughts as Louis. It really was hard to believe that such positivity could ride on the back of tragedy.

“Not in here, it didn’t,” Louis answered, sending mental well-wishings to Marley and Erakus, who should be here but weren’t. _You’re here with us in your own way._

 

\---

 

“There it is,” Harlock sighed dreamily, leaning out into the aisle to catch the sight of his driveway’s opened gate.

“Home,” Jenner mirrored, yanking Harlock back into his arms and biting his lower lip to control his grin. There had been many times where he’d suspected he might not make it back home, and to see it right in front of him was like an unlikely dream coming true.

“Won’t you come in for a bit?” Harlock asked everyone who didn’t live with him, already standing with Jenner even as they bouncily rolled up the drive to the estate.

“Yeah, but not too long,” Louis said, only agreeing because this was the last stop of his mother, and he had to make sure she was safe and Harlock’s place wasn’t overrun with predators, or some other nameless threat.

“That’s fine, I’m going to sleep soon anyway— _hibernate_ , even,” Harlock said, turning his head to watch every moment of their approach. “It’s beautiful,” he groaned, dropping his head onto the seat in front of him and sighing out stress he’d held in for weeks.

Zayn crawled the bus under the overhead that reminded Louis of hotel temporary parking to unload luggage, and the jolt when he cut the engine made even the grounded Harry slide forward in his seat.

“Sorry,” the Pakistani chuckled, pulling the lever to open the door that no one ever used due to impatience and stretching up on his toes.

Harlock didn’t wait another second and barreled out of the bus with Jenner in tow, and Jet with Stacey weren’t far behind. Louis hung back until Martin and Tanner passed, then he laced his fingers with Harry’s and walked out after Niall and Zayn. They left the door open because closing it wouldn’t matter, and strolled timely into the house, following the sounds of Harlock’s loud presence-announcement and the subsequent holler of glee from his tenants—which is a loose term considering they didn’t actually _pay_ , but it’s close enough.

Louis walked up the stone slabs to the black door and pulled Harry inside, his eyes adjusting to the lamplit sitting room he’d seen many times before but not ever in these contexts of freedom. Freedom from a dark future. The immediate sight to see was The General spinning Jet around in his arms, and Jenner ferociously hugging Missy, the blonde human who had befriended Louis his first time here.

“Louis!” Missy cried upon seeing him, rushing over to him after Jenner let go and repeating the action with him.

“Hey, Missy,” Louis said tiredly, giving her a one-armed hug because he hadn’t yet disconnected his hand from Harry’s.

“I suppose you don’t want to answer the question of what happened…” she guessed, her eyes scouring the group almost as though she was searching for someone and frowning when she was disappointed. Louis knew what she was thinking; Harlock had called home at Tahoe to deliver the news, but some of them probably prayed they’d imagined that call. Seeing the lack of Marley and Erakus was no doubt jarring, especially when they hadn’t been there to know why.

“Ask that of Harlock and Jenner, love—but not today,” Louis said as politely as he could, sharing an understanding smile with her before she turned to meet Jet.

Zayn, Niall, Martin, and Tanner were all locked in conversation around them, so Harry and Louis stood silently before the fireplace, using themselves to lean on because home had never been closer, and with that knowledge came the desire to succumb to their exhaustion.

“Alexander?” a meek voice broke through the chaos to reach Louis’ ears, turning his attention to the epicenter.

“Eden!” Louis said in surprise, looking between him (gorgeous as always in a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and hair in a messy bun), the tall and lean vampire he was under the arm of, and the doe-faced Josiah on his other side. “Josiah.”

The two humans they’d ferried for a small stretch of their journey came bounding over and stopped short in front of Harry and Louis, looking nervous to greet them as they might have if they didn’t have a lover of their own now.

“How are you two?” Harry asked pleasantly, putting his all into making small talk when it was clear he wanted to do anything but.

“We were so worried—about all of you,” Eden blubbered, dabbing at his perfect almond-shaped eyes and clutching onto Josiah, who was wrapped in an oversized jumper and beanie.

“At times, you had perfectly valid reasons to be,” Harry admitted, momentarily rubbing Eden’s shoulder until his supposed lover came stalking over from the mouth of the hall.

“Steady your fangs, child,” Harry scolded as he let go of Eden, lacking any speck of patience to deal with a possessive vampire after all he’d just been through.

“No, it’s fine,” the vampire coughed, fixing his attitude and bowing in the presence of his Elders, not to mention Elders he’d heard quite a bit of detail about by now.

“Take care of these two, but I doubt I need to say that…” Louis trailed, an expectant face letting the vampire know he was requesting his name.

“Matthew. And I will,” Matthew swore, patting the butts of both humans to push them forward.

Eden and Josiah didn’t seem to require any more encouragement and flew into Louis and Harry’s chests, their arms surprisingly strong for humans as they squeezed as hard as they could.

“I’m happy for you two,” Louis said genuinely, scratching at Eden’s scalp and then running his hand up and down the boy’s back.

“Come back soon?” Eden asked hopefully, looking up and meeting Louis’ eyes.

“At some point, yeah,” Louis assured, letting him go back to his lover after Josiah set that in motion by doing it first.

“Thanks for saving the world,” Matthew said, curling his arms around his humans’ hips and giving the Elders a wink.

“I would say any time, but once is enough,” Louis replied, waving at Eden and Josiah with a smile before taking Harry’s hand and leading him over to Stacey. He wanted to go home, so these goodbyes would need to happen now.

“Don’t bother saying anything now, sweetie,” Stacey said as soon as Louis opened his mouth, hugging him tight and pulling back to lean down and speak at face level. “You call me when you’re ready. We all have things to process. Just go home and worry about everything later,” she said quietly, her eyes sparkling with that motherly love that Louis would redo all of his suffering for.

“I love you so much, Mom,” he professed, fixing some of her hair and subtly inhaling her scent to keep it in mind. “I’m so glad you’re okay. You...yeah...I love you,” he backtracked, taking her advice to heart and choosing to address shit at a later and more convenient time.

“I love you too, sweetie. To the moon and back,” Stacey said, nuzzling her nose against her son’s and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“Alright...Harlock,” Louis said as he turned away, turning the pirate around by his good shoulder and carefully hugging him because he wasn’t sure what was and wasn’t acceptable in his state.

Harlock responded with mirrored fervor and smashed his face into the side of Louis’ neck, painlessly digging his nails into the small of his back to hold him close. “We made quite the team out there,” he said privately, smiling when Louis noticeably relaxed and melted into his chest.

“We didn’t, didn’t we?” Louis mused, lowering from his tiptoes to flattened feet and staring into Harlock’s golden eye. “You’re my brother, Harlock. I love you.”

“Love you too, Louixander. I’ll see you soon, yeah? Take care of my other brother,” he said, jutting his chin out in Harry’s direction, who was currently expressing words of regret and thanks to Stacey and Jet.

“You know it,” Louis said, stepping back from Harlock only to get attacked from behind with arms around his torso. He didn’t need to wonder who it was, but when he looked over his shoulder and saw the inferno of orange curls, he couldn’t help his laugh. “Hey, Jen,” he said, turning around in the arm cage to return the gesture.

“I’m not letting you disappear,” Jenner said, heaving a puff of breath and hugging him even tighter. “I’ll blow up your phone as many times as I need to before you come back.”

“Jen, I’ll be back. Don’t worry. I’m not far—you can always come over if you’re unsure,” Louis offered, grabbing Jenner’s head and conclusively kissing the center.

“Drive safe—you’ll be hearing from me,” Jenner said, his tone sounding almost like a threat. “I love you,” he added to lessen the blow, his eyes shimmering with unfallen tears as he grappled with their fellowship coming to an end.

“You’ll be hearing from me too,” Louis promised, finally escaping the masters of the Lawson house and hooking his arm around Harry’s elbow. “Let’s go,” he said, finding he didn’t need to search for Martin, Tanner, Zayn, and/or Niall because they had already gathered close to the doors.

“A round of applause for the Kings,” Harlock shouted, spurring a fierce accolade that followed the six vampires out of his house.

“For fuck’s sake!” Louis called back, waving over his shoulder and racing to the bus the second the night air hit his face.

The six of them piled into the first seats of the bus and Zayn turned the key before he even sat down, closing the door and turning the wheel to drive around the roundabout and back down the drive.

Harlock, Jenner, Stacey, Jet, and all the house creatures pooled out under the overhead to wave them off, and the bus-goers returned the waves until the hill dropped too much to see from, mirrored to their departure from Tahoe, and then their focus was only forward.

“My fish better be okay,” Zayn muttered, causing a wave of identical face slaps in disbelief.

“For all our sakes, I sincerely hope they are,” Harry laughed, catching Zayn’s glare in the rearview mirror and smiling even bigger than before. _Those fucking fish._

 

\---

 

“Moment of truth,” Louis muttered as they rolled up to Zayn’s house, springing after the rest of them because regardless of how much he wished he could pretend otherwise, he was actually desperate to know how the fish ordeal turned out.

In mere seconds they were up to the door, but the nanosecond Zayn had placed his hand on the knob, it swung open with abnormal force and a haggard, has-definitely-looked-better vampire barreled out and fisted Zayn’s shirt.

“Where have you been?!” he screamed, his eyes wide and tormented from endless stress.

“Jesus, Thomas. You’re still here?” Zayn asked, prying the fists from his shirt and taking a step back to glance at the state of his one-story house. It had no blemish or scratch he hadn’t left it with, and even from his limited view down the hall, everything was well-organized. Apparently Thomas had taken his job seriously.

“You told me if even one of your fishies die, you would rip me limb from limb, and then chop those pieces in half, and that if any of your shit went missing on top of that, you would grill those pieces and feed me to wolves,” Thomas recited, and from Louis’ old memory banks, it sounded decently verbatim. “What the fuck did you think I would do? _Not_ stay here?” he reasoned, looking thinner and more pale than any vampire Louis had ever seen. _Can stress really do this?_

“You’re a better friend than I thought,” Zayn praised, ruffling Thomas’s hair and pushing him out of the way to step inside. “And how are they?” he asked preemptively, zig-zagging through the short hall maze to the living room where the light of the fish tank illuminated the dark quarters in a white blue.

“They’re fine,” Thomas groaned, his patience and acceptance over his duties crashing to their death now that Zayn had finally returned.

“Hiya fweeshies,” Zayn cooed to the tank, kneeling down beside it and very lightly tapping on the glass with his claw.

Louis leapt down the only two steps that separated the hall from the living room and bounced over to the tank, kneeling beside Zayn to get his first glance at this infamous fish. And they were...indeed fish. Just fish. “All that fuss,” he murmured, shaking his head and watching the fish zoom back and forth in their sparkling clean water.

“What do you mean fuss? Wouldn’t you fuss? These are _puffer_ fish, Alexander. They’re fucking adorable. Look—look, he’s smiling at you! Don’t you see that?” Zayn asserted, pointing out one specific puffer for inspection.

Louis followed his finger and spotted the puffer in the back, facing the vampires on the other side and quite literally smiling like his life was the best in the world. It made Louis instantly fond and he began to see why Zayn was so attached to them. They _did_ smile at you.

“Are these the ones that puff up like spikey balloons?” Tanner asked, inching his way toward the tank while Martin made a beeline for the couch.

“Yes, but don’t try to make them do that. They can die from that,” Zayn said sternly, prepared to smack anyone away from the tank that began antagonizing his puffers into puffing.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Tanner assured, settling to simply watch the fish as though this was right here was the long awaited end to all their strife—staring at puffer fish. For Zayn, it actually was.

“Can I go home now? I don’t know what the bloody sam _fuck_ has been happening out there, but it’s a mess and I want to see if—”

“Yes, Thomas, you may go. Thanks for feeding the fishies,” Zayn said, chucking fifty bucks from his pocket that Louis hadn’t expected to see at his friend for all his dedication.

Thomas caught the wad of cash and glared daggers into the back of Zayn’s head, nodding twice at Harry and Louis before careening out of the living room, and furthermore, out of Zayn’s home—possibly forever.

“Well I’m glad your fucking fish are fine,” Harry said tonelessly, having not cared since the start of the saga, and certainly not caring now.

“You fucking Princess, don’t talk down to my fish,” Zayn bit, side-eyeing his best friend until a puffer was caught in his peripherals and he instantly turned back to the tank to address it. “Hi, Mumu…”

“This is gross, can we go?” Harry asked, knocking his forehead into Louis’ temple and whining like a kid in a bookstore when the toy store was right next door.

“Yeah, we can go,” Louis laughed, motioning for Martin and Tanner to follow them when the Frenchman surprisingly shook his head to decline.

“What?” Harry asked, looking between his butler and the fish tank and wondering if he really was the only one who couldn’t see their supposed magnificence.

“We’re gonna hang back for a bit,” Martin explained, getting attention from Zayn who obviously hadn’t heard this yet. “If that’s alright,” he added, waiting for Zayn’s nod to continue. “Cleaning is in my blood. I just know that after you two broke the house, the first thing I’m going to want to do when I get there is fix and clean it, and I’m just...too tired for that right now. So we’ll stay here for the day and come home tomorrow night.”

“Ooh sleepover!” Niall squealed, hugging Tanner and jumping around with him as Zayn stood and shrugged to allow the request.

“Fine with me,” he said, bravely snapping his fingers at Harry and not stopping until the Roman had impatiently stalked up to him.

“What?” Harry asked, his every muscle tensed and impassive to calm.

“I love you, Harry,” Zayn professed, gently wrapping his arms around Harry’s neck and leaving a hair of space between them in case Harry had some not-unforeseen-but-definitely-unfortunate reaction.

“Ack!” Harry huffed, rolling his eyes and sighing before reluctantly letting his tension go.

“You two have fun, yeah? I think you’ll really love living with us, Tanner. Once Martin cleans up the damages,” Louis said, having taken the hands of both young vampires while Zayn and Harry were best-friending it out.

“Anywhere with Martin is home,” Tanner said lovingly, giving goo-goo eyes to his lover on the couch, who hadn’t even pretended to be interesting in the fish.

“Call me tomorrow night—at some point,” Niall said, burning his eyes into Louis’ until he got a definitive answer.

“I will do my best. I may sleep late, but you’ll hear from me,” Louis said, participating in a short-lived but meaningful group hug with his two turning buddies (what a night that had been) and stopping by the couch to bump fists with Martin, something he’d never done before but something Martin reacted to without a buffer.

“I expect you to have done that before I wake up,” Harry said over Zayn’s shoulder, directing it of course to Martin and his housecleaning assignment.

“You know me,” Martin said with a half-assed salute, sparing Harry a wink and a smile to illustrate his true feelings. He was more than happy to adhere to that.

Louis found it a little puzzling, but he quickly realized what was going on. It was obvious that Harry was forcing himself to ‘act natural’ around Martin, because Martin had vigorously requested it of him in Tahoe, and if he hadn’t, Harry wouldn’t have the guts to. Louis knew Harry still wanted to walk on eggshells around Martin and Tanner, but he also knew Harry wanted Martin to be happy—and if acting like none of that had happened would make him happy, he would do it.

“See you guys later,” Harry said, passing Louis on his way out and leaving the chorus of reciprocated farewells to him.

Louis took care of that with haste and skipped out the door, closing it behind him and catching up to Harry, who was already one step up the bus. He took the stairs in one leap and fell into the driver’s seat, turning the key and waiting until Harry had pulled the door lever to back out of the driveway onto the road, and shift it into first gear. Then they were off.

“That’s gonna be difficult,” Harry said, breaking the short silence that had fallen as they rolled through the partly residential area into the thick of Fortwright, only to go back into the forest toward their home.

“What? Acting casual?” Louis guessed, following his earlier thought-train to Harry’s current mental state.

“Yeah...it was too horrific. Too much. What if forgetting it isn’t the right thing to do? What if that will make it worse?” Harry reasoned, still standing against the pole and staring straight at the double yellow line that separated the road lanes.

“Well I know one thing for sure,” Louis said, taking his first right turn and noting how empty the main road was—how long would it take for the world to go back to normal? What more needed to happen? Where _was_ everyone?

“And what’s that?” Harry asked, reminding Louis that he’d been in the middle of a sentence.

“Oh—that apologizing every five minutes isn’t going to do any good either.”

“Whatever,” Harry grumbled, still disappointed in himself for everything he’d let happen, or hadn’t been able to prevent happening; that was the same thing in his mind anyway.

“Watch your tone, I’m still your Elder,” Louis remarked, pinching either side of Harry’s thigh just above his knee cap to give him a jolt.

“Oi,” Harry snapped, unable to hide his smile and snort as he bat Louis’ hand away back toward the wheel.

“Honestly, Harry?” Louis began, changing the tone back to serious and letting out what he’d been thinking lately in the back of his blended thoughts. “I actually think Martin and Tanner _are_ going to want to talk about it someday. I don’t think this is going to be swept under the rug forever, I just think there’s processing we all have to do first. In other words, let them come to you. You may be waiting for nothing, but you’ve been banned from speaking first, so whatever happens, leave it up to them,” he said, complimenting himself for how wisely he’d articulated that.

“I suppose that’s fair,” Harry accepted, finally taking a seat but doing it against the front panel beside the gear stick.

“It is,” Louis agreed, reaching over only briefly to caress the closest side of Harry’s face before strictly focusing on his driving.

Not much to say could be found after getting that out of the way, and though there were many places to start, neither thought now was a good time. If they had forever, they didn’t need to rush...well, they assumed they could have forever now.

Louis took the regular route to the forest path and was ecstatic when he finally pulled onto it, drinking in the familiar sights of the dirt road even in the night and thanking a lot of alleged Gods that he was coming back home with Harry at his side. He’d done so much avid sight-seeing that the first glimpse of their mansion caught him totally off guard, and it’s a wonder he didn’t veer off the path from the jarring realization. “Harry, you might wanna see this,” he said, not taking his eyes off their directive but watching Harry turn and rise in his peripherals.

“Ah,” Harry sighed like a masseuse had hit the right spot on his back, chuckling through his nose as more of the mansion was uncovered from the trees. “Home.”

“Home,” Louis repeated, meeting his lover’s gaze and flashing him a smile that was immediately returned. Through all their stresses and concerns, neither could deny—the mansion eradicated seventy percent of it and they weren’t even inside yet.

“Is the gate—”

“Yep,” Louis quipped, remembering that they wouldn’t have done a silly thing like close it on their last drive out.

“Hurry up,” Harry said, trying to but failing at lowering the frequency of his excitement.

“Okay, okay,” Louis laughed, stepping on the gas only to get them over that last stretch before the gate. He slowed way down then, turning with careful precision so he wouldn’t clip the sides of the vehicle on the aged black metal, and then flooring the gas pedal to get the bulky thing up the steep hill. The engine roared in protest as it climbed the tough land and then puttered once it reached the top, puttering all the way to be parallel with the stairs until the engine cut.

“Did it just die?” Harry laughed, in sheer disbelief over such perfect timing.

“Uh,” Louis drawled, attempting to turn the key only to have the bus spit morse code and die off again. “That would be a yes.”

“Wow. Perfect. Especially because I’m never stepping foot inside a bus again,” Harry snorted, grimacing down the length of the vehicle in clear disdain.

“What do you mean?” Louis defended like he actually held passion for the topic. “Buses are our thing now, Harry. We unintentionally made bus trips our tradition, and now the eight of us have to stick to it. Harlock will fix this baby up and we’ll—”

“Six, Louis,” Harry corrected, hanging his head down and silently mourning the loss of their two all over again.

“Oh...right, six,” Louis reiterated, feeling really shitty all of a sudden to admit Marley and Erakus were no longer with them. “Well...the six of us will do it for the two.”

“I can cooperate with that,” Harry said with a smile, turning the mood back around and this time waiting for Louis’ hand to quickly exit the scene.

 _Well that’s a first_ , Louis thought, gladly placing his hand in Harry’s upturned palm and walking out with him. They hurried around the front of the bus and had to stop and stare at the gloomy face of their home for a bit, taking in and re-familiarizing themselves with every possible exterior detail. It was beautiful. Dark, creepy, foreboding, run-down, _beautiful_.

“No use—”

“I swear, if you say ‘staring at it’ I will personally send you to hell,” Louis warned, walking backwards as he stuck his tongue out at his beloved Harry.

“Can’t—my hell froze over,” Harry said just as teasingly, chasing after Louis when he turned and ran to the front door.

“Here goes everything,” Louis said, gripping that rusty handle and pressing his thumb down on the lever to finally swing the door of his one and only home open. He jumped inside and inhaled the stale air, literally feeling the dust cake down his windpipe and loving it above all else.

“Wow, I did not...somehow...even when it’s all I’ve thought about...I didn’t accurately imagine how amazing this would really feel,” Harry said, walking deeper into the living room as Louis flicked the chandeliers on and turning in a slow circle to watch the light bounce and trickle off his expensive crystals and glasses...which were actually in pieces, but that’s not even a concern at this point.  

“I can say the same,” Louis said, spinning in his own circle and humming in satisfaction. The couch had never looked frumpier, the walls more colourless, the floor had never felt squeakier—everything about it was wondrous and flawless (not minding the broken shit everywhere). He already knew how difficult it would be to step one foot outside again.

“What do we even do?” Harry asked, the mansion world in his hands with no direction to take himself in.

“Are you tired?” Louis asked, thinking back to all the times he’d caught Harry nodding off or yawning on their way here.

“Not anymore,” Harry said, his eyes staying true to his statement by sparkling with life. Well...as much life as they could have.

“Well I’m following your lead,” Louis said, the pair standing frozen in the living room staring at each other until Harry broke his stance and headed toward the music room.

Louis shrugged off his coat and tossed it across the room to the closest couch, which was still stuck in the hallway, and shuffled after Harry, watching his feet so he wouldn’t step on any wood splinters or glass shards and inconveniently impale himself. Martin certainly had his work cut out for him.

By the time Louis got to the doorway, Harry had already sat down at his piano and begun to play, and it only took the second chord for Louis to realize it was _Year Endless_ he was playing—that infamous first composition that had stolen Louis’ human heart. “Mmm,” he hummed, leaning against the door jamb and fawning at the sight. He’d seen it in the dream, but real life was...real life…

He also realized this must have been how Harry had originally found him, and the flipped positions was as amusing as it was fated.

Harry’s fingers danced over the boisterous introduction with far more expertise than Louis recalled the Roman having, and that only amplified his affections. Both were indescribably content in their environment, and playing _Year Endless_ the second they got home couldn’t have been a more perfect choice, even if they wouldn’t have thought of it first.

Merely watching wasn’t enough anymore, especially considering the last time they’d been in the music room, it had been a shared mirage. Real but not physical. He needed physical. He pushed off the the doorframe and crossed the room as quick as his short legs would allow, reaching the piano stool and resting one bent knee atop it, parallel to Harry’s thigh.

He curled his hand around Harry’s hunched shoulder and gazed at his playing with more light, happy love than he’d felt in a damn while, and if this were silver screens, this would be about the time the camera would pan back away from them, out the music room and front door, and freeze on a wide shot of the mansion—the place where everything started.

Started for the third time, that is.

The credits would roll by with the cast names of Louixander’s dramatic, supernova odyssey, and the audience would applaud with tears in their eyes, surrounded by a floor sea of soggy popcorn kernels.

Thing is, Louis’ story won't ever stop, so there won't be any credits. His credits existed in the form of an indestructible ferris wheel, privileged or doomed (depending on the mood of the day) to spin itself around and around, filled with passengers or empty. Through ice, fire, or death itself, it won't stop even for a second.

Louis’ and Alexander’s fears, their friendships, history, future, and most importantly, love, were endless. Has Louixander ever mentioned that before? That his love is endless? Because it is. It really, _really_ is.

∞

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey....so I've been SUFFERING in this useless body of mine, and night time (when I write) has been the worst, so I'm sorry for this egregiously long wait. This chapter is also ungodly long. We still have one left to go, but *wipes tear* ach. This is weird. What do I say? I'll see you a bit later for the epilogue. Thanks for this incredible journey we've been on, I've loved every second. That's a lie—but I've enjoyed most ;)  
> I'll have a better closing speech next time.  
> Jax out.


	24. Epilogue: Part A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M LITERALLY THE WORST OMG LOL. 
> 
> Okay, like...so...yeah. This isn't actually the last part, oh wow. And I made you wait soooo fucking long for it too. Ahaha. I'm quite literally cackling as I type this, this is ridiculous of me. But...I just couldn't stand it. I couldn't wait any longer. At least I feel like I've made some sort of progress. It's halfway done, and this is the first half. I can't even begin to begin with what has been happening to me, but basically all you need to know is I'm always dying. This body is a piece of shit, and my mental state is under constant fire because of it. 
> 
> Besides that, I do apologize even if I feel I have valid excuses, I don't want you to think I don't care or give a fuck that people want to see the end of this. I want to as well. Anyone who is waiting is an unfortunate victim of my crazy existence lmao. I'll work hard to finish part 2 in less the amount of time as it took to get this out. Any reputation I used to hold for being the fastest uploader alive is six feet under. Quite like your mind might be when you get to the end of this first part epilogue. Haha, no panicking. It's too late in the game for me to make you reasonably panic. My Love Endless career is nearly over, I'm prepping for my retirement, I wouldn't stir the pot now.

December 24th, 1982 -

 

Believe it or not, the world actually _had_ gone back to normal. Not immediately, of course, but gradually, as you would have expected it, people fell into their daily routines, and the whole debacle was cluelessly named “The Period.”

Louis found it funny the whole world knew _something_ had happened, but couldn’t quite put their finger on it, so had just accepted it as a weird blip in their timestreams and moved on. ‘The Period of 1973.’ Warlocks and witches helped a _lot_ with widespread complacency and memory loss spells, and the humans who did manage to escape the ranges weren’t believed by anyone when they tried to clumsily explain what might have went down.

The only evidence things had gone awry had been everyone’s cars either crashed or in a different spot than they remember leaving them, a few burned down establishments from fires, some dead pets from unintended neglect, and the weird conditions all the television stations and electrical powerhouses had been left in. So...that was pretty blatant evidence that something had indeed happened, but with some cleanup from the good vampires who hadn’t taken a break at that time, all was set right.

Through the rest of the 1970’s, more and more pieces of evidence from The Period were craftily erased, all up until there wasn’t enough memory in humans left to let the time keep its title. So now even the name ‘The Period’ was lost to all who weren’t around to see it up close and personal—those who hadn’t suffered the effects of the predator lures.

And where were the predators? Gone. Not forever, but they weren’t active. Louis didn’t know exactly where the escapees went, nor did he care, for he had no harbored fears over Auron’s minions striking hell upon Earth without him. Little thoughts came and went in his mind that consisted of Azazel’s unknown other creations, the ones older than Hadrian and Auron combined, but he never dwelled on their ambiguous existences for long—he was allied with Cináed, after all. Nothing scared him anymore.

Speaking of Cináed, of course Agnes had her baby boy, and from what he could tell from the short phone call they’d shared a week after his birth, he wasn’t a normal child. Which...was to be expected; but when he’d asked what in the hell that meant, they’d changed the topic faster than he always had whenever Aguta gave him _that look_. The child, whom Agnes had named Conall, was allegedly scarier than his father, and his unexplained powers nearly eclipsed both his parents’ at once, so...there was that.

Apparently, this Conall of theirs had some, what _Agnes_ called ‘birth effects’ (or defects if we’re being realistic), or at least physical traits that neither humans, vampires, nor magicals had ever inherited from anywhere, and no matter how many times Louis asked, Anges and Cináed only ever said the same thing: “He’s perfect.”

Whatever. Being that this is now 1982 means Collan is roughly nine years old, and he says roughly because _apparently_ (he’s using that word a lot) age doesn’t mean much to this creature...more information to come if he ever gets it.

Also, he hasn’t been able to stop singing _Rosanna_ by Toto for a week now. New music was arising from the ashes of disco; he heard things when he turned on the radio; and he enjoyed it all very much. He had a feeling the 80’s would bring about more jams than he was ready for. That suspicion had begun with _I Ran_ by A Flock of Seagulls—what a masterpiece.

Along with music came the evolution of television and appliances—pictures were clearer, sound was sharper, things were somewhat portable, and _MTV_ , do not get him started. He misses seeing all the boys in bell-bottoms, but tight pants of any kind were welcomed, and he could still rock his own in the comfort of his home.

Ahh, his home. His base. The mansion in the woods of Fortwright. Martin and Tanner had entered a sort of honeymoon stage shortly after their worldly adventures had come to a close, and they’d moved out only a week after settling in. Louis understood the need for solitude after almost losing your lover, and he rather felt the same towards Harry—they all deserved a private period of adjustment. Martin and Tanner’s relationship had brewed in the midst of chaos anyway, so this was their first real go at a steady, normal existence together, and they were making the most of it.

Besides, no one thought it was permanent either. None of Martin’s things had been relocated, and his book of The Hobbit still lay face-down upon his pillow, temporarily frozen on page 252.

The last time Harry or Louis had seen those two had been some time four months ago, but they would be seeing them tonight for sure because it was December 24th, or more commonly known as Christmas Eve, and even more commonly for this household, Louis’ ‘birthday,’ but that’s besides the point—Christmas was consistently spent in Tahoe. With the family in the mountains, the one and only Sparrows.

The tradition had only been fleeting and broadly spaced before, but after going through so much together, everyone felt more like a family than a fellowship of comrades, so it quickly became an unspoken rule that once a year, they would share the Eve and sometimes day of Christmas together at the Sparrow houses. It was nice, and something Louis really looked forward to when the time came; which was nice because they had to hit the road in just a few minutes.

“Louis, have you seen my coat?” Harry asked, strolling out in a white blouse with all of two buttons done and scratching at his lengthy curls.

“No, but have you seen your _self_?” Louis replied from the couch, biting his lip and raising one eyebrow in a blatantly sultry manner. He couldn’t help it—Harry standing there with an exposed chest and lax position against the hall’s edge did things to his mind. It did things to his everything.

Harry’s lips turned up in a smile and he gazed down at himself, snorting as he straightened back up to look down his nose at his ogling lover. “I could say the same to you—look at that bowtie,” he moaned, stalking forward and walking his hands over the arm of the couch to crawl up to him.

Louis scoffed and hid his bowtie with his right hand, looking at Harry suspiciously and ever so slightly scooting away. “What’s wrong with my bowtie?” he asked, freezing when Harry grabbed both of his thighs to keep him right where he was.

“I just moaned over it, Louis. You really think something is wrong?” Harry reasoned, taking in everything else about Louis’ suited outfit and humming in appreciation. His trousers hugged everything he could see like they were painted on, and just the thought of things he _couldn’t_ see was making him—

“Why do we always do this? Even after all these years?” Louis laughed, putting their seductive behaviors on pause while he got to the bottom of their antics. “We dress separate to impress each other...as if we’re newlyweds.”

“Louis, every single time I see you, I feel like a lovestruck fool,” Harry said defensively, evidently seeing nothing wrong in excessive appraisals. “If I’d ever gotten sick of you, we wouldn’t be here like this. Same with me to you. The fact that we’re still here means we’re still obsessed with each other,” he added wisely, continuing his couch crawl because he knew he’d said the right thing.

“You transparent little—”

“Ah,” Harry _tsk_ ed, putting one finger to Louis’ lips and leaning in to inhale his neck, side-eyeing the bowtie and struggling to contain his grin. “Think hard on your insults, Louis. I’ve never tried to hide anything in my life,” he said, immediately cringing at his words because he remembered through the lure, he’d accidentally informed Louis of his past dishonesty.

“ _Uh-huh_ ,” Louis drawled sarcastically, both thinking of the same admission involving sexual encounters with Roman soldiers and nameless others in Hadrian’s teendom, but not vocally speaking of it to let it stay buried where Harry had wanted it. “I’d call you lucky that I’m obsessed with you.”

“I am lucky. And eternally grateful,” Harry agreed, holding Louis by the jaw and forcing their lips together before he made any more cracks about how awesome he was when Harry already knew.

Louis groaned against Harry’s lips and wrapped his legs around his torso automatically, his fangs dropping without his permission because they were much more insistent than he was an individual. “I want you,” he growled between their liplock, pleased at the shudder that rippled through Harry’s body.

“Well you can’t have me,” Harry replied with a smirk, pushing off the seat cushions to hover over Louis’ offended form.

“Excuse you?” Louis balked, sending his hands straight to Harry’s belt to unbuckle it and tear the clothes from his body.

“The Sparrows?” Harry reminded with an eyebrow raise, letting his words sink in and chuckling when that anticipated look of remembrance crossed Louis’ face.

“Shit, alright. But when we get back—”

“I know, Louis. Believe me, I know,” Harry said gladly, booping Louis on the nose and finally excusing himself from the couch now that he had the freedom to do so. “That’s hardly a threat anyway.”

  


\---

  


“Well there you are!” Veronica said happily, swinging her door all the way open for Louis and Harry to waltz through.

“Here we are, love. They in the back?” Louis asked, hugging the woman he’d grown to love since meeting her all that /short/ time ago.

“Yeah, our lovely humans are starting up the campfire—they’re gonna roast marshmallows, I think,” she said with a wave of her hand, pulling Harry in next and rushing him further inside.

“Well hey, you two,” Lori said as she clacked her heels across the floor, nine years older with her small child, Cyndi, running up behind her.

“Hey, Lori—and _hiiii_ , Cyndi,” Louis said brightly, kneeling to the floor to catch the little one (who was running straight for him).

“How old is she now?” Harry asked, peering down at the scene of Louis’ overdone affections and smiling to himself about it. In some other life, with the right combination of body parts, maybe they could have…

“She’s five,” Lori said with a sigh, seeming to reflect on her daughter’s growth in her thoughts.

“Five,” Harry repeated with a chuckle, doubting he’d ever seen such pure innocence before in his life. What was he pushing now? One thousand and nine-hundred something? “That’s precious,” he praised, wondering how this child’s purity compared to Anges and Cináed’s. Could innocence even exist in that home?

“Baby!” Stacey cooed as she entered the living room, making a zig-zag to come around the small hip-heighted hall and shuffle her way to her eternal baby boy.

“Hey, Momma,” Louis laughed, handing Cyndi back off to Lori and catching his mom just in time for her to throw herself at him.

“Come out, come out, everyone’s here. We’re only waiting on—”

“No need,” Max said as his tall stature stepped in from the front door, leading Øvind in by clasped hands and smirking at the shock from the members of the room. “Fashionably late, I suppose, but we had some things to take care of first,” he said, opening his arm for Stacey and Jet (who had come at the sound of his voice) to cuddle under.

“I cannot believe you are still with him,” Louis said teasingly to Øvind, whose black irises had gotten just a fraction wider, but still remained small enough that you could tell where he was looking.

“Where else would I be?” Øvind snorted, scratching at his gravity-defying white-blonde hair and unintentionally showcasing black-painted nails. What an icon. He was also wearing a choker but Louis refused to acknowledge that—entirely too cute for all the wrong reasons.

“We should definitely go out now, or everyone is going to squish themselves in here,” Veronica pressed, making a good point and setting everyone into motion toward the kitchen and out through the sitting room.

“Where’s the tree?” Louis asked as he walked the path, noting how it hadn’t been where it was last year.

“You’ll see, you’ll see,” Veronica said, hanging back and letting all pass before her to be polite.

“Max, how do you two even know when the days pass? How do you ever know it’s Christmas?” Louis asked curiously, having never asked that simple but reasonable question.

“I told you, I listen—I have the best ears out of anything in the world. Better than all my siblings, and that’s probably the only thing I have to brag about with them, but it’s a big one. They’d all disagree, but it’s fruitless to do so considering I hear things they can’t,” Max said quickly, making it look like he’d aimed to keep his self-praise brief all along, but everyone knew he could and would keep going at the slightest provocation.

“Well then,” Louis hummed, finally stepping down the three steps of the sitting room and flinging the door open to immerse himself in his outside friends. “Oh wow,” he squeaked, shocked silly to find Liam, Johnny, Ezra, and Astair all present near the fire set-up...oh, and the large and extensively decorated Christmas tree had been staked out here as well, but before he could mention that—

“Liam!” Harry shouted, blinking rapidly as the four mentioned vampires ambled over to greet them. “What are you doing here? You always refuse these invitations—I didn’t even think to smell for you. If I had, I would have thought I’d imagined it anyway,” he said, slamming his hand down on Liam’s shoulder and grinning from ear to ear.

“Well Johnny won’t stop complaining about his rising age, and I’d been missing you guys anyway,” Liam said, looking left to lightly glare at his Johnny for all the trouble.

“Why don’t you turn?” Louis asked Johnny, kind of clueless as to why Johnny wouldn’t have already done so by now.

“It’s just not me,” Johnny said with a small smile, shrugging his shoulders inside the leather jacket he was drowning in and returning to Liam’s side after hugs were distributed.

“I feel your pain, Liam,” Harlock said randomly, coming up behind the pair and speaking straight into Liam’s mind because he didn’t need to guess where his thoughts lie.

“Hey now,” Jenner chuckled, spanking Harlock’s butt as he passed to (theoretically) keep him in check.

“If you’re here, does that mean…” Louis trailed, surveying the outside group to maybe answer his own question.

“Bernard and Petra don’t hang around anymore, no,” Liam said sadly, causing a round of silence to fall upon all those who missed Julius Caesar.

“Let’s keep our spirits up,” Liam added when the silence took too long, pointing toward the shining Christmas tree as though it was a pillar of strength they should all look to. “It’s Christmas after all.”

Louis valiantly held in his comment that Christmas was every year and nothing to celebrate in itself, and at that moment, Tanner and Niall’s arms around him eradicated any oxygen for words regardless.

“You suck at calling,” Tanner said, nuzzling into Louis after a lengthy time being apart to refamiliarize himself.

“Sorry, babes. We never know where you two are these days,” Louis defended, bending his body in odd ways to try and reach back for both Niall and Tanner at once.

“Luckily you live too close to me to _not_ suffer my company,” Niall said, punching Louis in the arm because it felt right for the moment.

“Oi!” Louis barked while he swished his hand as though batting away a fly, grabbing the back of Niall’s neck and rubbing his fist into his blonde hair.

“Shit, I give, I give,” Niall laughed, groaning when Tanner joined in the gang-up festivities because the odds of escape were now entirely out of his favour.

Louis let go but only because he wanted to, kissing Niall on the cheek and making his way over to the place he most certainly needed to visit before any more smiles and laughs could overrun its significance—Erakus and Marley’s grave.

He walked with purpose to the spot, weaving between people with the most of his grace until he ended up over that overgrown plot of land which had once been freshly disturbed for their sakes. He found Elijah and Niko standing close to it as well with two wine glasses of blood in their hands, and he hadn’t spotted them until then, but he might have guessed this is where they’d be. “Hey twins,” he greeted, reaching out toward the table topped with glasses for the taking to finally have his own helping.

“The girls are more twinny than us,” Elijah said, his eyes searching only for a moment for where his sisters might be and giving up just as fast when he didn’t immediately find them.

“Still, you two are close behind—I don’t fancy real twins anyhow,” Louis persisted with smile, leaving out the hugging business unless they initiated it because he didn’t like constant ‘obligatory’ contact any more than they did.

“How’s ‘82 treating you?” Niko asked, taking it upon himself to hand out glasses to passerbys to make use of his lazing.

“Same as ‘81—and by that I practically been 1381,” Louis said in a tone they could instantly relate to, finally turning his body to face the spot he knew held the perfectly preserved forms of his two lost friends. That was a thing, by the way—if he’d never explicitly mentioned what happened to vampire corpses. Vampires were corpses already seventy-five percent of the time, so when they actually died, nothing much changed. And bugs wouldn’t dare.

“Is Harry doing any better these days?” Elijah asked barely above a whisper, leaning in close to really secure his efforts to privatize their conversation.

“Yeah, he is,” Louis mumbled, nodding his head to give more actions than words for his response.

“That’s good,” Elijah said, recalling not that long ago that he’d been worried sick over the mental state of Harry, who had undoubtedly and specifically outwardly blamed himself for everything when he shouldn’t have.

“We just miss them,” Louis added, unable to deny the great sadness that came upon speaking of or addressing the awful truth of their absence.

“And we always will,” Niko said, adding everyone who applied into the statement because those deaths had hurt many.

“Yeah,” Louis said as he gazed down at the hard Earth, spinning around when a loud clap was sounded that caught him off guard. As he’d already suspected, that engaging clap turned out to have been from Veronica, and he raised his eyebrows in question for the yard-wide summoning.

“Would anyone mind some music?” she asked, scanning the crowd from her spot stood on a chair to make sure. She received many neutral shakes of heads in response so with a nod, she hopped back down and stepped up to the speakers that had been placed outside, fiddling around with some knobs and buttons to get them spilling out said music.

Louis made eye contact with Harry and gave him a grin, beckoning him over without the intention to because when their gazes were locked, magnetization transpired. He turned back to the Sparrow brothers and awaited the curling of Harry’s arms around his waist, and he had to cackle when the music finally released into the air— _I Ran_.

  
∞  


March 4th, 1987 -

 

“Well anyway, happy birthday, babes,” Louis said to Jenner, getting the talks back on track after Harry and Martin had blown up in a rather explosive argument regarding their match of chess.

“Thank you,” Jenner said through his laughter, dropping his head on Louis’ shoulder and smiling because chaotic as it could be, he always loved it when they were all together.

“Now, can I ask a question?” Louis said, turning his head to get the best view of Jenner’s face in the crook of his neck.

“Mm,” Jenner hummed to comply, finally straightening to meet Louis’ inquisitive gaze.

“You...look older,” Louis said bluntly, zooming his focus on Jenner’s face, which he’d known so well for so long, that now looked a little different.

“That’s not a question,” Jenner pointed out, his ever-present smile assuring Louis he’d said nothing wrong.

“Then I guess my question is whether I’m onto something or not,” Louis amended, noticing Harlock, Harry, and Martin were all tuned into the conversation now, with Harlock smirking in amusement.

“You are,” Jenner admitted, nodding his head and making his orange curls animatedly bounce around. “I, uh...I tried this spell from Agnes, and I put my everything into it because it was so freaking hard, and well...I let go entirely of the aging spell for a split second—the one I use Harlock’s blood for. I don’t usually have to focus on it, but I just disregarded it completely. I managed to put it back in a second or so, but I still lost some time. Three and a half years, to be exact. I’m now three and a half years older in appearance.”

“Wow, I didn’t really know that could happen,” Louis said, obviously accounting for the fact that he knew next to nothing about how magic worked.

“Actually neither did I—that’s why it took me by surprise. Imagine if I hadn’t caught what was happening as quick as I did. I might look fifty by now,” Jenner chuckled, his tone suggesting he wasn’t all that complacent with the possibility.

“And you’d still be handsome,” Harlock chimed from his couch spot across the coffee table from where they sat, his gentle fonding sending a deep blush straight up Jenner’s neck and onto his cheeks.

“Oh, stop,” Jenner said, giggling like an imbecile as though he hadn’t received any compliments from Harlock when in fact, he did all the time.

Louis understands, though—he’s still taken by Harry’s words sometimes and they’ve been together an _obscenely_ long time.

“So who are we waiting for still?” Tanner asked, looking around a mere two seconds before dumbly realizing the two individuals still not present. “Ah—Zayn and Niall,” he said before anyone could condescendingly tell him, checking the time since it had to be well past their agreed time of meeting. And it was. “What’s taking them so long? Forty minutes doesn’t seem like much but it is for vampires…”

“My guess? Lost track fucking too much,” Harry theorized, getting a snort of out of Harlock, but only him.

“Does anyone want any blood?” Stacey asked, tired of sitting when she felt there were possibilities to make herself useful.

“You’re so cute,” Jet whispered lovingly, smiling when Stacey met her eyes and giggling together.

“If anyone’s going to be delivering shit, it’ll be me,” Martin said, having gotten back into his butler behavior since the world’s weight was lifted from his shoulders. He actually liked it a lot, he just never voiced things like that out loud.

“No, it would be me,” Harlock asserted, staring both speakers down like they were crazy. “I’m the master of this house. That makes me the host—all the time,” he said with strong conviction, leaving it a close-ended concept that couldn’t be weaseled around. “Now, does anyone want blood?” he repeated so it came from him, scoping the room with his gaze for any longing faces. Harry and Louis were two of them. “Say no more,” he said even though they’d kept silent, removing himself from the couch to cater to their private pining. “I’ll just bring a bunch.”

Louis looked to his lap and smiled, pleased Harlock knew everyone and their levels of discretion so well that he would rise to the occasion with or without responses. Nobody liked to _ask_ for blood. It was far better to simply receive it. His nose twitched when Harlock opened the bags, and that was probably what distracted him, because he didn’t understand how he could not notice—

“Greetings, peasants!” Zayn greeted blaringly while he and Niall appeared in the living room, the door shutting from the momentum several moments later.

“Every time I see you two, I cringe,” Louis said with a highly displeased face, tearing his eyes up and down their outfits and hairstyles. They’d taken the 80’s very seriously, and both had gotten their hands on hair extensions to match the insane styles one might find from the decade’s glam-rock bands.

“How very, Louis. I don’t care,” Niall insisted, not noticing Harry’s glare at Zayn while he skipped to the couch and took Louis in his arms.

“What?” Zayn said defensively to Harry, shuffling under the heat of his stare.

“‘Peasants?’” Harry repeated tensely, part incredulous and part furious.

“What’s your damage? I’m obviously not serious,” Zayn said tiredly, holding his hand out for Harry to shake because he couldn’t get off on a wrong foot right away.

“Exactly how much time do you two spend together clubbing?” Harry asked, asking because with every visit, their vocabulary had widely expanded, while his remained the same, basic fluctuation it had undergone after the end of the 70’s.

“A lot?” Niall guessed, ecstatic he’d been able to join the club life after that awful first experience he’d had with them. Besides, the first time he’d gone as a human. It barely counts for that reason alone. He’d found pretty quickly after the war that he _loved_ clubbing. And comparing the two decades he’d been mature in, he could tell _now_ was the time for the nightlife. _Now_ was the time to be alive, in whatever meaning that term had.

“How are the fish?” Louis asked, keeping the question as neutral as possible lest Zayn get choked up about the deaths of the ‘original’ fish.

“They’re good,” Zayn replied, keeping things light because he truthfully hadn’t caught Louis’ hesitation. “One puffed up today, but he lived through it.”

 _He’s just going to keep adopting puffers until the world ends, isn’t he?_ “That’s good,” Louis said past his loud thoughts, draping an arm around Harry’s shoulders and giving Niall a nudge to encourage he go to Zayn.

“Alright, _peasants_ , here you go,” Harlock said with an eyebrow raise to Zayn as he walked back in with a tray full with wine glasses with not-that-content inside, giving one glass of juice to Jenner before distributing everything else.

Louis thanked Harlock when he was given his glass, sipping slowly to savor the taste even though it wasn’t is preferred type. Yes, he _did_ have one, unlike Harry’s inner slut for blood. It was _not_ all the same.

Harlock set the mostly emptied tray on the coffee table and took the last glass for himself, taking his place beside Jenner and quietly drinking his glass while the room engulfed itself in silence.

This was a silence Louis couldn’t handle. “How’s about we play ourselves a game while we’re just sitting here?” he suggested, leaning forward to place his glass on the coffee table so he didn’t have to hold it, because for some reason, he was annoyed with that concept.

“A game?” Harlock shadowed, stroking his cheek with the butt of his palm while he considered the possibilities. “Like what?”

“I know what,” Niall said proudly and mischievously, sharing that menacing understanding with Louis and his gaze. They both knew.

“I don’t like this,” Martin said, sinking into his chair because he had the inkling he knew what they wanted as well.

“Truth or dare,” Louis and Niall said simultaneously, not losing a speck of excitement though Zayn and Harry’s snorts sought to make that happen.

“What’s that?” Harlock asked, checking with the amused Jenner for any clues.

“Something you’ll hate,” Jenner said with a grin, leaning in close to his lover’s face and unofficially making himself the first player while he officially made his pirate the first victim. “So, Harlock, my one and only love...truth or dare?”

“Uh…” Harlock stammered, imploring Harry to help him out with this one.

“There’s no right answer,” Harry informed, placing his glass beside Louis’ and settling back into the couch to relax while he could. “You’re fucked either way.”

“Fucked either way?” Harlock asked all too gleefully, stroking at Jenner’s unprepared thigh and leaning in close to turn the tables on the warlock’s imagined dominance. “I’ll take both then.”

 

∞

 

February 14th, 1995 -

 

“Come on, dork, they’ll be here soon,” Louis panted, recovering from their heavy petting on the couch while Harry sluggishly shuffled out of his clothes.

“I have a weird feeling about today,” Harry murmured, his form present but his mind far away, eyes staring hard at the fireplace wall where images Louis couldn’t see likely flashed like fireworks.

“Now what would an innocent day like Valentine’s Day have in store for us fossils?” Louis challenged, trying to keep his superiority complex in check before he invalidated yet another of Harry’s worries.

“Mm,” Harry hummed, utilizing the best subconscious reaction he’d ever come up with when he wasn’t listening to a word his lover was saying.

“For the gods’ sakes, what is it?” Louis huffed, wrenching himself up to sit on the cushion, jamming his chin into Harry’s belly button when he looked up at him to maybe get his attention.

“Hm?” Harry asked, shaking his head to dispel his train of thought and gaze down at Louis’ pleading face. “You’re so cute today,” he chuckled, running his fingers through Louis’ hair and playfully fluffing it up. “I’m fine, I promi—”

“Were you actually going to try and promise me?” Louis asked, rolling his eyes at the mere concept of such a stupid pretense. “I only want you to promise me if you need to talk about it, assuming it can’t be me, that you’ll _go_ to someone. Preferably me, but as long as it’s someone, that’s fine,” he said, coiling his arms around Harry’s hips and grabbing both cheeks of his iconic arse because he simply couldn’t refuse such a delightful temptation. They were _right_ there.

“Hey now—I can’t comfort you?” Harry teased, caught in the lie but still trying to justify it.

“Not with a lie. Besides, I’m a cold, hard stone; unable to be reached by mere comforts,” Louis reasoned, winking with a lip bite and then getting serious once more because he wasn’t satisfied with the vague brush off. “Can you at least tell me what _kind_ of bad feeling it is?” he asked, prepared to give it up if Harry ruffled his feathers, but luckily, his face went pensive as he searched for a response.

“I don’t really know, it’s like a...like a—”

“Are you not dressed?” Martin’s voice called from just outside the door, Tanner’s scent right beside him and shocking the Elders who had once again been too engrossed in each other to notice their approach, much less their arrival.

“Damnit!” Louis cursed, enraged to be interrupted when all he’d bloody wanted was some passionate exertion if you catch his drift, and he hadn’t even gotten his hands on anything but a butt. Which...was fine, _however_ , he’d been fiending for something more all morning—the _second_ they got home...

“You can come in,” Harry called over his shoulder, his long legs untangling themselves from the quilt as he tripped his way to a standing position.

Martin had opened the door and caught the very last evidence of Harry zipping up his jeans (as if anything had happened), and Louis’ eyes were the first his traveled to. “Yes, hello,” Louis said with obvious strain, letting his disappointed facial expression do all the talking.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d lose track of time like that,” Martin goaded fearlessly, having brewed a very casual with Louixander ever since traveling the world together on their colossal quest to save the damn thing. Harry, he still couldn’t disrespect, but Louis generally deserved it, and he didn’t think anything he could do to him would be worse than Auron’s torture.

“It’s like you don’t know me at all,” Louis joked, fake-boxing with the butler and running him down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Are you guys ready besides that?” Tanner asked, taking a light seat in the opposite couch of Harry because he might need to spring right back up.

“Yeah, we are,” Harry said, looking over his shoulder and clearing his throat to break his butler and lover up.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis grumbled, fuzzing Martin’s hair and crushing him into his side as they skipped back into the living room.

“Double dates,” Tanner snickered, sharing a look of same-page exasperation over the concept with Louis.

“Hey, it’s a fine idea,” Martin said, crossing his arms and adopting a hardened expression until Tanner walked up to him and wrapped his arms around his waist.

“I know, baby,” Tanner assured, smiling at Louis and bantering through unspoken thoughts while Harry rose from the couch and took Louis’ hand to wrap around the back of his own gentlemanly elbow.

“Off we go,” he said, strolling to the door and refusing to make one sound or facial expression that would allude to the fact he may just in fact be in Louis and Tanner’s boats about this Valentine’s Day date thing. Martin meant well, but…

  


\---

  


“Blood-tasting in broad moonlight,” Harry scoffed, sat outside an all-hours ‘bar’ straight in the middle of a normally busy stripmall. It didn’t phase even one passerby, mostly credited to their unanimous intoxication from the other bars around the area, but if they just paid a speck of attention, they would see the folks on this corner looked and acted quite a bit different from them.

“Eventually we’re going to get to a point where no one is trying to take over the world, and both species can sort of live in peace and harmony together,” Louis supposed, thinking of all the humans who already knew of their secret and didn’t think twice about it. Full integration was such an inevitable coming; where else could anything lead?

“We need a long break from the last catastrophe before we work toward exposure, though,” Martin said, agreeing to a point that broadcasting their species would prove a destined happenstance, but keeping wishes for this fate in the negative reserves of his gut.

“Oh, completely,” Louis said at once, nodding as he took a languid sip from his tricky wine glass. “I’m not saying any time soon—I just think it’s bound to,” he explained, becoming impatient and downing his glass in one gulp with a throw back of his head. “Whether some of us like it or not,” he mused, twisting the stem of the glass around between his fingertips and licking at his lips.

“Happy topics, please,” Tanner said with a clearing of his throat, taking Louis’ empty glass for him and asking around for the others to put himself on refill duty.

“Happy topics,” Martin repeated, watching Tanner whisk back into the bar and disappear from sight while he himself slouched down in his seat sideways, flinging his feet onto Tanner’s chair and leaning his head back against the waist-high, iron-wrought gated fencing that boxed in the outside drinking and smoking area.

“I’ve got a happy topic,” Martin said with a barely-contained grin, side-eyeing both Harry and Louis for them to prompt him further.

Harry took the bait. “Go on,” he urged, faking just enough fascination to make his old-time butler cave and continue.

“Tanner agreed that once it’s legal, he’ll let me marry him,” Martin announced quietly, probably having waited until Tanner was out of easy earshot to break the news because Tanner would have made a shy ruckus about it.

“Why wait ‘til it’s legal?” Louis asked in the same hushed volume, double-checking Tanner’s position inside just in case the sneaky boy had an ear to the glass window. “If you recall—”

“I know what you did for them,” Martin said, choking on the names and ending up with a safe ‘them’ instead of uttering something that could sadly bring down even the best of moods. “And I’m not saying it was invalid in any way, I know you’re a King, _former or not_ , but I want to be married to him on paper—the paper of this human society,” he stated, sounding too sure in his wishes to be steered away by any measure of Louis’.

“Well alright then,” Louis sighed, smiling at the picky butler and imagining when and in what decade that legalization would transpire. Would it ever? He remembered a time not too long ago when meager attempts and pleas were made—something about Minnesota in the early 70’s—but he hadn’t expected anything to come of it, and it hadn’t. And look, it still hadn’t. Why were humans so caught up on this? They should visit history…he’s got stories that would confuse even the straightest of cocks.

“Just wait—humans will figure it out,” Martin said surely with more faith than Louis could ever place, nodding with a curt jerk that was alas hard to argue with.

“I think I got the right types, I don’t even know,” Tanner said as he walked back outside, nothing on his face that would suggest he’d heard Martin unearth his marital plans.

“Just give it,” Harry said breezily, sniffing at the glass and bringing it to his lips with a shrug—it wasn’t the type he’d been expecting but this meant nothing in the long-run. He’s never been picky with that.

“So, uh…” Tanner began, sitting down after kicking Martin’s feet off the edge of his chair and fiddling with his curly hair. “Martin and I have something to tell...ask of you,” he stuttered, grabbing Louis and Harry’s attention and Martin’s nervousness and throwing it all at himself.

“What?” Harry said, locking eyes with Martin for any clues but the butler seemed to have taken on the role of the clueless bystander.

“Well...what you so famously like to call our ‘honeymoon stage,’” he said with emphasis on the title, dragging out his point longer than he had to for reasons neither Elder could understand. “We think it might be…”

“Out with it, child,” Harry said behind a little mound of glass, taking a large sip as he kept his eyes on Tanner and his fretting.

“Oh, for fuck’s—we wanna move back in,” Martin finished for him, ignoring the glare he received from his lover because he’d needed out of that awkward aura immediately.

“That’s it?” Louis laughed, setting his glass down and smiling with Harry at their friends’ weirdness.

“You made us think you were dropping some earth-quaking news, fuck,” Harry seconded, shaking his head and scooting his chair closer to Louis as he threw an arm around his shoulders. “Are we that scary?”

“Off your high horse, Your Wondership, I just didn’t know if now was a good time for you,” Tanner huffed, once again having a noticeable amount more confidence with the Roman than Martin ever could.

“Well why wouldn’t it be?” Harry countered, throwing Tanner’s excuse right back at him.

“I don’t know, maybe you were enjoying the freedom or something,” Tanner said with a helpless flail of his arms, his eyes darting to something left of the Elders, who seemed to smell the sight just as quickly.

“Zayn!” Harry called as he turned, greeting his longtime friend with his expected Niall under his arm.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Zayn said, truthfully surprised to see not only two, but four of their familial friend group in one unproposed place.

“Not too fancy,” Louis said, lightly sipping on his drink while he gave Niall a pinky wave—pinky wave being a little inching, bending motion with said finger.

“Are you double-dating on Valentine’s Day? Without us?” Zayn asked, slowing his stroll to a halt once he finally took in the details before him.

“We figured you’d be too tangled up in the sheets to make it outside,” Harry said casually, clearly without any guilt for his lack of inclusion.

“We were—practically until this very moment,” Zayn snickered, burying the nonexistent hatched he’d presented and pulling up two extra chairs from an uninhabited table. “So what are we talking about?” he asked, sniffing around at the glasses and frowning when every single vampire subtly pulled theirs away from his nostrils.

“I’m old, Zayn. I can’t remember every topic of conversation,” Louis said, dodging the forehead flick that came striking from Zayn’s bold finger. “Watch it,” he growled, his sneer falling to a smile in an instant when he met the lad’s sparkling eyes.

“How long have we been here?” Harry suddenly asked, his eyes searching the darkened streets for a clue to something he couldn’t wrap his head around—why was he feeling this way?

“Hm? Er...probably—”

“It’s no matter,” Harry quipped, abruptly cutting Louis off and shaking his head as though drops of water clung to his winter coat. “We should get going,” he pressed, already sliding his glass toward him to down the last of it and be done with the whole event.

“O...kay,” Louis struggled to say, looking to his other friends for some manner of assistance he knew he wouldn’t get. When Harry wanted something, any odd behaviors he exerted to achieve it rarely went without purpose. Best to ride the wave.

“I agree,” Martin said even though he probably felt no particular way about it whatsoever, gathering his and Tanner’s coats from the back of their chairs and standing simultaneously with Harry.

“Did you canaries slip into a coal mine?” Zayn balked, affronted over having barely sat down and said his greetings before his company was in a huff to leave.

“It’s us, isn’t it?” Niall asked sadly, hoping the timing was bad and not his presence.

“Of course not, just go about your night, we’ll call you later,” Louis said, smiling warmly but with a manic look in his eyes that said ‘get out while you still can.’

“Aye,” Niall said on exactly the same page, fisting Zayn’s collar and dragging him away from the table and back the way they’d come, all the while exchanging casual pleasantries to their remaining friends.

“Go wait for us at the mansion, or move your stuff in if you want. Your old room is fine, but of course you can stay wherever you want to,” Harry said to his overjoyed butler, patting him on the butt to shoo him off and then crowding Louis between their emptied table and the gate it filled the corner of.

“Okay, bye,” Louis said to Tanner, who was noticeably confused at this turn of events, waiting until they had zoomed off to glare into Harry’s troubled green orbs. “What has gotten into you?” he quietly snapped, a huge supporter in the notion of maintaining privacy from possible prying ears in the club.

“I don’t know, fuck, I’ve felt like this all fucking day, but I wouldn’t be making any sort of deal if I didn’t really sense—”

“Henry!” a chastising, womanly voice called from the corner road, her footsteps bringing her closer to an unseen second pair. These second-pair footsteps were quite a bit faster in rhythm than the woman’s, which meant closer together, so presumably a child’s, and both Harry and Louis leaned over the gate to find the wandering youngling...maybe do their one good deed to the human race for the year.

The child couldn’t have been more than four years of age, with semi-wavy blonde locks and untied shoes, and he was evidently having the time of his fresh and exciting life running from his exhausted Mother, so Harry quickly reached over the top of the gate as he passed to lightly grab his shoulder and save the woman some effort.

“Oh, thank you! I’m sorry about him,” the woman said to the both of them, just beginning to cross the road when Harry finally met the child’s eyes.

Louis jolted when Harry did and rushed to examine the cause, eyes flying between the expressionless child and the positively frozen Harry. “Hey, uh...ahem,” he tried, signaling with snaps that Harry should probably unlock his gaze because the mother was now halfway across the street just a few short metres to the right.

For all his attempts, though, it seemed neither the child nor Harry were in any rush to break their eye contact, and the longer it went on, the less accurately Louis could call the child expressionless. There was an expression there; uncommonly deep and scrutinizing speculation. His big brown eyes seared into Harry’s guarded ones, eyebrows continuously dancing in wonderment, and Harry visibly gulped under the pressure.

 _What the fuck…_ Louis thought, shaping up and loudly clearing his throat when the woman finally skidded to a stop behind her apparently insolent child.

“Henry, you listen to me when I tell you to slow down,” she hissed, firstly tying his wayward laces and then dragging him into her waist, finally straightening up to thank his helpful captors.

“Don’t mention it,” Louis said before she could focus on Harry’s currently questionable facial features, forcing her eyes to him instead. “They’re wild at this age—we all go through it,” he said, trying to be relatable as if he had some brat of his own to take care of...though perhaps he did...and he was standing like a statue right beside him.

“They are, aren’t they?” the now obviously brunette woman laughed, deeply sighing and wiping the sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief. “Thanks again—come on, Henry. Do not do that again,” she said, gripping the child’s wrist in a careful but stern vice-grip and setting off for their initial destination. 

The child’s head turned as he was led away like a rooster weathervane in an easy breeze to keep Harry in his sights, stumbling over his own feet from the multitasking and only conclusively turning away when his mother gave him another exasperated order, then the spell was at long last broken...whatever it had been in the first place.

Now it was Louis’ turn to stare unblinkingly until they would turn the corner of the street and disappear entirely, and once they did, he whipped back around and stepped forward into Harry’s space to demand answers. “Out of all the centuries I’ve known your intolerable self, that was perhaps the _weirdest_ thing you’ve ever—”

“That was Auron,” Harry deadpanned, still gazing heavily at the space wherein he’d last seen the mother with the being she obliviously only called ‘her child.’

“Ngh!” _No way_. Louis choked on life itself and shot backward like Harry had punched him in the face, his vision tunneling into a pinpoint while he processed the violently harsh declaration he’d just heard. “What!” he coughed, spinning around to try and catch them again even though they’d already left.

“That child—that child was Auron,” Harry repeated, needlessly so if you asked both of them, but it was the only thing he could fill his voice with. Just those indescribably surreal words.

“You can’t be sure of that,” Louis said without any real confidence in his own statement’s truth, meeting Harry’s refocused eyes and cringing at the whirlpool of emotion in them. Harry was absolutely sure.

“Maybe it does sound insane…” Harry admitted, cinching his brow and shaking his head as he erased the hopeful doubts he tried to cling to. “...But I know my brother when I see him.”

Louis’ mouth dropped open from the shock of the confirmation and he was left in a looped state of looking behind him, to Harry, and back behind him, replaying what little was there to in his head of what had just occurred. Had that really been Auron? Was that what the staring was all about?

Did his blissfully ignorant soul recognize his vampire brother standing so tall over him? How much did he recognize? Surely he didn’t actually remember anything...but even so...Auron would grow up in this area...what the fuck did that mean for them? Was it even an innately bad thing anymore? What the _fuck_!

“That little shit,” Harry muttered, cursing his twin for deciding to come back to this exact spot in the world with the full knowledge of what he had been doing at the time, even if he’d lost the purpose for now.

“Well...this will be interesting…” Louis said dumbly, groaning to the dark clouds above and snapping his head back down when Harry began to laugh.

“Yeah,” Harry chuckled with a grin that made Louis roll his eyes, hopping over the gated fence onto the sidewalk and linking his fingers with his King’s when he did the same. They then set off as a confused unit back toward their one and only home, hand in hand, and neither could stop the occasional snorts if they tried. This was preposterous. It was undeniably the most ludicrous thing the 90’s could ever hope to offer, and that included short sleeves over long sleeves. “Yes, it will be _thrilling_ …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mehhheheheh. Have no fear. This is maybe not such a bad thing. Why, you ask? Well I'll tell you. NEXT TIME. Haha, next time is the last, I swear. Love you. Jax out.


	25. Epilogue: Part B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crawls into the website and slams the chapter down* THERE! THERE! I'M DONE, GOODBYE.  
> Noooo not really. I still have the fourth book to do aha *sobs* This has been a crazy ride, thanks for being with me, I love you. You're just simply fantastic. Love Endless wouldn't have been the same without you guys so whoop de fucking doop. No I actually really appreciate it, lmao I never get tone across text well, even being a writer. LISTEN it's been grand. That's it. More at the end. 
> 
> Also, after a few months, I'm going to be shoving this part B into A because it's annoying having them separate, but maybe I should wait longer? Idk...that's gonna happen, though. just telling you know.

∞

 

September 11th, 2001 - 

 

Maybe not Louis, but definitely Alexander was shocked at just how global a party the turning of the millennium had turned out to be. The previous year, 1999, had been stocked with such abundant anticipation for the next one, and humans everywhere blabbed about how rare and lucky they were, at any age, to live to see the turning of a new age. Perhaps they wouldn’t be so stoked if they’d lived to see the last one as well, but Louixander can admit there’s something satisfying about that new first number.

About the party, though, the world was more connected now than he’d ever seen it, and it really felt like every single creature upon it was aware of each other and one of the same, regardless of time zones that separated the hours of celebration. Everyone had been on the same page, and with the evolution of televised news, everyone saw each other like they had never been able to.

Louis and Harry had partook in the festivities by going out to their favourite new blood club and getting drunk off intoxicated humans. Jenner, Harlock, Zayn, Niall, Eden, Josiah, Matthew, The General, and the Sparrow children had been with them, stumbling along the streets in similar states, and they’d received calls from their international friends beforehand, so they’d all been in insufferably great moods.

The humans he’d been drunk off had been so plastered themselves that there were actually holes in _his_ memory regarding that night, but he knew they’d all ended up at the mansion for a sort of afterparty that led well into the next morning until their immortal bodies forcefully knocked them out. See, he can still be wild and fun when he wants to be.

The year 2000 had come and went as quickly as any other year, and when 2001 graced society with its shining moment, people could finally begin to get over the fascination of the ‘2’ before the year. No excitement lasts forever—except maybe the excitement of waking up in a cocoon of Harry’s arms, which was where he was currently reflecting from.

“Did they wake you up too?” Harry croaked, his arms immediately starting up petting motions on Louis’ back now that he knew it wouldn’t disturb him.

“Hmm?” Louis throatily asked, still too groggy to make sense of that opening question.

“Upstairs,” Harry explained, falling into silence so Louis could hone in on the barrage of footsteps and furniture-rustling transpiring by way of their roommates.

“Oh, maybe,” Louis admitted, unsure as to why exactly he’d woken, but if the sun was down, it would have been a good time anyway.

“I can’t tell what the fuck they’re doing—I think they might be rearranging rooms out of boredom,” Harry groaned, clearly having been the unfortunate one to be brought into consciousness from the noise.

“It amazes me that never happened by you or Martin’s efforts before. You were here for two centuries, and never changed the place up,” Louis mentioned, having known even as a human here for the first time that some things hadn’t even been _touched_ for that long. Particularly in the dusty library. Harry had later admitted that was the one place he didn’t let Martin clean, and Louis never figured out his exact reasoning behind that. Too sentimental? Liked the spooky aesthetic? Probably both.

“There’s not much of a point—but I already know if Tanner sees one, suddenly Martin will too,” Harry chuckled, always an entertained bystander to watch Martin change and grow along with his lover to be the most perfect unit possible. If Tanner ever wished for or wanted something, Martin was there to make that happen—not because he was whipped and couldn’t think for himself, but because whatever wishes Tanner had innately became Martin’s as well.

“Well as long as we’re up, might as well actually do that,” Louis said, kissing the center of Harry’s chest and rolling himself over to grab some pyjama bottoms and the nearest robe, all in their expectedly random spots on the floor. This was one other room Martin’s cleaning impulses had no rights to.

“You and your logic,” Harry sighed, blindly reaching behind him for his own robe he somewhat remembered throwing back there when he got into bed.

“You dreamt of something last night, didn’t you?” Louis asked, sitting back down on the mattress now that he’d partially dressed himself, and running his hands through his shaggy hair with a yawn.

“How do you always know these things?” Harry asked as though he was exasperated, but Louis knew not to take it that way.

“Your voice changes its tone when something is heavy on your mind, and whenever it’s directly after sleep, I can only assume it means you saw something,” Louis said, laying his face sideways on his upper arm after hugging his knees to his chest.

“Well, I don’t need to tell you you’re right,” Harry said, pulling his arms through his robe and reaching back to free the hair that had gotten stuck between it and his back. “It was Auron, of course,” he confessed, combing through his hair with his fingers and staring down at his crossed legs. “But he looked different—he looked like that kid he was six years ago...six years older.”

“So still a kid,” Louis said, pointing out the fact that would still only make him ten years of age. “I haven’t seen him since,” he added, twisting around to watch Harry and see if his face held any other story.

“I haven’t either,” Harry seconded, squinting his eyes in deeper thought and groaning a troubled hum. “But I’ve felt him. When we’re out and about, sometimes, just sometimes...I know he’s close,” he said, having nothing but worries over how strong his brother’s aura still was in a different body and life. He shouldn’t recognize him so clearly—he hadn’t even recognized Alexander in his house either until he’d really gotten a good look at him. If he hadn’t known _Alexander_ was back in his life at the first second, why was his brother any different? Was the bond of twins really that powerful?

“Maybe ‘Henry’ looked a bit suspiciously thoughtful regarding you when you saw him, but he was a child—children know things. They have the most understanding of the place they’d just come from, but that’s temporary. The older they get, the more they forget, so I wouldn’t worry about Henry suddenly waking up one morning knowing exactly who he is,” Louis assured, placing his hands on his knees to push off and stand like the creaky ancient he was.

“Do you really think nothing will ever come of this?” Harry asked, joining in the standing to make their way up the stairs and into the morning evening. “Auron specifically put himself here like you did. That means he had a plan. You think it won’t ever see fruition? Look what happened with you,” he said, urging Louis to be more logical in his assumptions that the situation was merely black and white. Crazier things than Auron regaining memories have happened...and that was Alexander regaining the very same. If that could happen, anything else could.

“Let’s cross that bridge if we come to it,” Louis said, too smart to both let it go and dwell on it. Patient neutrality was a good goal to achieve in their hearts about this circumstance—both sides of the scale away from that only led to hair-tearing and nail-biting.

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry grumbled, astounded even to this day of how predictable Louis and his de-escalating efforts could get. “We’re never going to run out of bridges to cross, are we?” he laughed, sure that if life hadn’t settled down by now, it never would. Of course, he should know that already, but he’d held out hope for quiet peace.

“You’re cute,” Louis said in the place of a light-hearted but unnecessary insult to Harry’s intelligence, racing up the steps when Harry gave chase because tickling was not something he desired this early in his night.

The two busted the trapdoor up with a chorus of laughs, and Harry picked Louis up to swing him around once they rose fully onto the floor of the mirror room, playfully nibbling at his neck as he did so.

“Help!” Louis cried with a grin, squirming to get away. “I’m being eaten!”

“Mmm,” Harry hummed, setting Louis down and groping his arse as he walked on ahead. “It’s your fault you’re so delicious, not mine.”

“Your tastes are your responsibility, not mine,” Louis shot back, stretching his arms high over his head as he crossed the threshold into the hallway.

“Anything you want?” Harry asked, spinning around to walk backwards and face his tiredly shuffling lover.

“I’m sure Martin already got the stove started, but on the off chance he didn’t, I want you to,” Louis said, looking forward to his morning glass of blood as he did every other morning. “And I want a lot. I want to get high,” he specified, rubbing at his eyes as Harry snorted into the back of his hand.

“Okay then,” Harry said with a nod, darting forward and probably flying off the railing around the corner to see to Louis’ request with haste.

Louis quickened his own pace and ran down the staircases until he was on the first floor, waltzing into the living room and blinking several times until he understood what he was looking at—everything was in a different spot. “So that’s what you were doing,” he murmured, barely noticing when Tanner passed by behind him with a box of antiques in his arms.

“Oh, hey Louis,” the boy said, not stopping his stroll but looking over his shoulder to address him.

“Been busy I see,” Louis said, taking a different route to the long couch which was now where the old short one used to be and grabbing the TV remote on impulse because the news was actually something he enjoyed receiving so instantly in this generation. He pressed the red power button and sank down into the seats as the television crackled on and focused on the news channel is generally stayed on, getting interrupted the second he tried to take it in.

“Louis, normal temperature or are you looking for something different?” Harry asked from the kitchen, making a bunch of banging sounds as he went through the fridge and cabinets for the needed equipment. Martin had apparently not started on breakfast at all, or they’d had it much earlier and cleaned up after themselves.

“Uhhh…” Louis drawled, about to answer until his eyes finally ingested what they was seeing on the screen. The President, obviously, but there was a concerning ribbon of words passing by at the bottom edge of the frame. “Uh,” he repeated, his eyebrows furrowed as he spam-pressed the volume button on the remote to really understand what he was perceiving.

“... _Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve…”_

“The fuck?” Louis muttered as the picture flashed back to the channel that speech was apparently being replayed on, leaning forward to get more to the story.

“... _Strong words from the President earlier, something we all keep in mind in these tragic times.”_

Louis grabbed the remote and flipped to the next news channel up, dissatisfied with the lack of comprehension he’d gotten from that one. What he saw made everything make a bit more sense, but it still took his useless breath away. Something had happened to one of the twins towers of the World Trade Center, a very nostalgic place for him, and he felt a twinge of sadness for anyone who might have died in the crosshairs of this apparent fire.

“... _The most audacious attack on American soil in history. Again here we the moment of the collision on the North Tower, which occurred at 8:46 a.m. in Lower Manhattan, New York City_ …”

The second the recording showed the tower _collapsing_ , Louis’ mouth dropped open and he snapped back to reality, looking away only for a moment to shout down the hall. “Guys, get in here!” he said, leaning all the way forward once everyone materialized and wildly gesturing to the television.

Almost everyone crossed their arms at once and stood in silent concern, shocked something of this magnitude had happened while they’d known nothing about it, but more so just shocked that it had happened at all.

“Holy fuck,” Tanner whispered, crouching beside the coffee table and holding his fist over his pursed lips.

“... _Again, this a slowed clip of the second attack on the South Tower, only nine minutes after the first. You see it here strike the southern face, just awful…”_ the female anchor said, circling her hand around the red circle that pointed out a plane, as though it was hard to see. _“...Death toll is still under calculation, but we anticipate it in the three-thousands…”_

_“...Just terrible, Suzy. And here we see the moment of the South Tower’s collapse, timed at 9:59 a.m., look at it, straight down. Just harrowing. The North Tower, yes very similarly, see, went down at 10:28, roughly just over an hour and a half after the initial strike…”_

“I fucked you on those buildings,” Harry suddenly said mournfully, eyes glued to the screen as he watched the South Tower cave in on itself like some deflated, stationary balloon.

Louis flung himself sideways and smacked Harry hard in the side, glaring at his equally offended face and shaking his head in annoyance. “That’s what you’re focusing on?” he scoffed, too prideful to admit that thought had gone through his head too.

“ _Well_?” Harry balked with a defensive outstretch of his arms, rubbing at his side and petulantly grumbling over the audacity. “That night was important…”

“Shh,” Tanner hissed, directing everyone’s attention back to the screen as the newscasters covered an unexpected third piece of the puzzle.

_“...Then of course the WTC building 7 at 5:21 pm, just hours ago, gave out from uncontrolled fires and weakened structure, seen here…”_

“Wait, what?” Tanner asked, perking up from his small crouch like a meerkat out of a sandy hole. “What did that building have to do with anything?” he asked, quieting down when no one seemed to want to answer him.

_“...The President issued a state of emergency immediately following the attack and all law enforcement and intelligence agencies are currently working to bring the terrorists to justice for these egregious attacks. More to come as we are informed, please stay tuned. If you have family members that may have been in lower Manhattan today, or God forbid the towers themselves, please don’t lose hope if you cannot reach them, there are a lot of—”_

Louis turned off the television with a loud sigh, rethinking the given information he’d just taken in and scratching at the side of his head. “So two planes…” he began, taking in the third building and letting it go because he was still too sleepy to debate how it all came together.

“Three thousand people is a lot,” Tanner said sadly, not too disconnected from his human life that he wouldn’t feel utter sorrow for them. In fact, no one here was complacent with such a thing—if anyone _was_ fine with it, they needed to assess themselves as individuals.

“The greatest attack on American soil...the greatest attack on the whole world’s soil was probably Azazel and Auron,” Harry said, rubbing at his chin and shrugging his shoulders. “But since almost no one remembers that, I guess this takes the American spot...besides when the Europeans first got here.”

“Perspective is everything, dear,” Louis agreed, clueless now as to how to continue his day. He’d definitely lost his appetite for temporary life—why should he steal it when thousands had already lost it today? “Know where to get any weed?”

 

\---

 

“Come with me,” Harry whispered onto Louis’ neck, making his next piano chord sound like a strangled duck from the jolt in his forearms.

“Where are we going?” Louis asked, knocking his head back to look up what ended up being Harry’s nostrils. How a creature’s _nostrils_ could be beautiful was a testament to Harry’s unheard-of perfection.

“You’ll see,” Harry said with a smirk, giving a short rub to Louis’ shoulders and promptly leading the way out of the music room.

Louis frowned but followed anyway, interlocking his fingers behind his head and making sure his elbows didn’t knock against the door jamb on the way out. Harry led him into the kitchen, and before Louis could ask what was up, two bags of blood were handed to him from around the fridge door. “Ah,” he said, understanding now this probably had something to do with sex, “Right now?”

“No, just take them,” Harry said as he /lightly/ kicked the fridge door shut, revealing two bags of his own in his hand.

“Take them where?” Louis asked, relentless in his curiosity because it was rare Harry planned something without telling him.

“Just follow me,” Harry snorted, walking past Louis with purpose once again and strutting to the first-floor staircase.

Louis blankly stared for a few moments before hopping along after him, taking two steps at a time to catch up and walking silently side-by-side. “I’m trying to figure out if it’s an anniversary of ours I’ve forgotten,” he confessed, knowing neither of them knew such a date anyway. Not after all this time.

“Could be—that would be wild,” Harry said, allowing the possibility even though it was highly unlikely.

Louis was just about to ask another question when Harry sped up ahead of him, so he was forced to break into a run as well, hoping it wasn’t Harry’s plan to make him catch him or some bullshit, but he came to a sudden halt before the door to the attic stairs and almost caused a full-blown collision. “For the love of—”

“Sorry,” Harry laughed, fishing through his pocket for a set of keys Louis hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. “Had to make sure I had these.”

“Why have a lock on it anyway?” Louis huffed, rising onto his tiptoes and hooking his chin over Harry’s shoulder as he watched him pick through the ring for the right one.

“I don’t actually know,” Harry admitted, only slightly shrugging so he didn’t dislodge Louis and finding the right key at that moment. “There we go,” he said, fitting the rusty key into the lock and turning the fragile door knob to unleash the darkness that awaited their passage.

“Martin hasn’t been up here I take it,” Louis said, breathing in a fair amount of dust and aged wood as they walked up the creaking stairs...though _shrieking_ might be a better term.

“I just told him not to long ago,” Harry said, having forgotten why he’d been so particular about it at all. He hadn’t been up here in easily fifty years, but at one point he’d cared about it...had he put something in the attic?

Louis shut his eyes when Harry slammed against the trapdoor to open it because dust in his lungs didn’t need to be in his eyes as well, but he kept walking blind when Harry grabbed his wrist and led him up. “I’m getting more and more suspicious of you,” he muttered, smiling when he heard Harry’s quiet chuckle because that sound was...wow…

“I’m always suspicious of me,” Harry seconded, stopping when they were both stood in the attic and patting Louis’ shoulder to say it was safe to open his eyes. How that was translated that well was just a factor of their matched wavelength flow together.

“It’s empty…” Louis deadpanned, squinting his eyes in the dark to really focus and make sure he wasn’t missing anything.

“It is,” Harry snorted in disbelief, knowing for a fact it hadn’t always been empty, but having no proof of the contrary.

“You’re unbelievable,” Louis said, resting one hand on his hip and looking at his love sideways, taking his time to take in his side profile like a starved consumer of art.

“Well in any case, the attic isn’t what I brought you up here for,” Harry said, taking Louis’ hip-settled hand and closing his fingers around it. “This way,” he said, trusting his instincts to lead him to the door without looking because he preferred keeping Louis in his sights.

“You’re purty,” Louis drawled with doe eyes, grinning when Harry played along and swept his long curly hair over one shoulder and batted his lashes.

“You’re more purty,” Harry said, accidentally walking straight into the door he’d been trying to predict the coming of. “Fuck,” he cursed, using his last three fingers to open the knob on account of the two blood bags he was holding in a pinch.

The strong breeze that barreled through from outside whipped their hair all about in intense angles, but neither tried to fix the damage that had been done, walking resolutely onto the flat section of the mansion’s roof that could almost be called the battlement between its two bookend towers and enclosed with a short black fence. The fence, presumably, existed so one didn’t slip and roll off the diagonal dips down to the hard dirt Earth, but whatever human thought this was a good picnic spot was irresponsible anyway.

“Ohhh I see,” Louis said, all things coming together and allowing him to grasp the full point to all this.

“Of course you do,” Harry said, taking Louis’ two bags from him and sitting down right where he stood while he started to open one of the four. “A legendary building I fucked you on was tragically destroyed today—albeit in a weird and inconsistent way contrast to the official reason—but either way, it’s definitely gone. And it’s a shame. So if you don’t mind, I’ll be fucking you on top of my house.”

Louis slapped his forehead and giggled at Harry’s infamously chaotic thought process: ‘America underwent an enormous tragedy today so I must fuck you on the roof of a mansion.’ Because _that_ coincides. Nevertheless, it was true they’d been involved with those buildings in the 70’s, and that night had been the start of the war, so he understood the sentimentality and sat with his lover, letting his remarks die in his throat—he was down for it, so it didn’t matter.

“Here,” Harry said, passing off both unopened bags to Louis and downing his before Louis had even clasped his hand around the top edges.

“Eager,” Louis chided, sipping his down at a regular speed to toy with Harry, and by the look of frustrated desire on his lover’s face, it was clearly working.

“Oh, as if you’re not eager for me,” Harry said snidely, pulling his shirt over his head and casting it aside as he leaned back on his hands and crossed his ankles, soaking in the moonlight and closing his eyes as if Louis didn’t even exist a few feet away from him.

“That won’t work,” Louis laughed, his smile flatlining when Harry made no reaction whatsoever and continued basking in his superiority complex. “You’re not cute,” he added for extra fire, clenching his fists and now desperately needing Harry to give in so he could win. Nothing. Five more seconds...nothing… “Oh, for Jupiter’s sake,” he growled, leaping forward off his back legs like a frog and landing himself straight in Harry’s lap.

Harry opened his eyes to boast his victory, but Louis’ lips were on his before he could even try, so he attended to that instead, letting his lover’s tongue do whatever it wanted to while he worked on removing Louis’ ratty black t-shirt.

“Hurry up,” Louis demanded, getting more than he asked for when Harry disappeared and yanked his legs down until he flat on his back. He stayed there looking at the stars while Harry tore both their clothing from them, and the sharp sting on his hip was the only thing to tell him the time had come.

“You never take your time opening me up anymore,” Louis grumbled just to have something to grumble about, not too keen on being a ready and willing slut every time Harry had an impulse, but he had to face the facts—he was absolutely that slut.

“Like you need it,” Harry muttered back with a lopsided grin, inwardly hissing from the sensation of spreading blood over himself and pushing up against Louis’ hole. “Fuck.”

“Whether I need it or not is not the poi- _ahhh_ ,” Louis sighed, his speech falling flat when the first wave of pleasurable pain sprouted from Harry’s unhurried entry. “Hurry, postman. Before my husband gets home,” he said in a feminine voice, holding in his laughter at suddenly playing the role of a double-timing wife.

“Shut the fuck up, Louis,” Harry chuckled, pushing one of his legs up to his chest and falling down to lie mostly on top of him, going straight for the neck with his fangs because that was a method of proven success in shutting him up.

Louis squeaked when those fangs dove into his neck, overcome with sensations as Harry began to thrust his hips at the same time, sending him headfirst into an illusion of floating above the night clouds he was currently staring at. “I love you,” he slurred, almost unable to hear his own sentence, but evidently Harry had deciphered it.

“And I you, my mischievous, unapologetic, and frequently evil partner in eternity,” Harry said, increasing the force of his thrusts with every quality he named.

“I’m not _that_ bad,” Louis rasped, releasing more animalistic sounds than human-like as his body was deliciously owned and used by the only one with rights to it.

“You _should_ be more evil—I’ve got a lot to atone for,” Harry grunted, licking into Louis’ mouth before he could begin another rant about how he was innocent and didn’t need to talk like that. For the last time, that wasn’t for him to decide.

Louis caught the ‘clever’ interception, but he also realized he could grill him on it later; this episode of not-so-spontaneous roof sex didn’t need to come with lectures, so he temporarily let it go. That ‘temporarily’ is a giant keyword. “This is still ridiculous,” he said when their lips broke, looking around in as many directions he physically could at their outdoors and elevated surroundings.

“This is as close as I could get,” Harry defended with a chuckle, putting himself back in that night in New York City in 1973 and recalling the details he’d always kept close to him (after getting them back from the lure, of course). “The wind was so strong up there—like knives on our skin—this may be nothing like it, but it’s still a roof.”

“Any roof counts, huh?” Louis asked, squealing for a short second when Harry subconsciously changed his hip trajectory to hit his special spot. “Rest in peace to all those people...just terrible,” he said, putting large amounts of effort into the forming of his words so he didn’t accidentally moan a sentence so serious.

Harry nodded and brought his palm to his lips, kissing it with a smack and throwing a peace sign up over his head toward the clouds. He then stilled his hips and closed his eyes for a moment of silence—one of which prayers were likely being sent, but not to the typical god most pray to. To the otherworld itself.

Louis joined and when he was _nearly_ done with his well wishings, Harry went straight back into demolishing him, so his prayers got cut short, but he didn’t think the passed souls would mind. _Ah well_ , he thought, steering himself for his first orgasm of the night that was coming up like thrashing water against a badly cracked dam. _You get the point._

 

∞

 

October 31st, 2011 - 

“This fucking night again,” Harry groaned when he looked at the Fortwright Daily, a thing he hadn’t ever had until Tanner had moved back in and requested its presence, subscribing beforehand anyway and only explaining himself after the first roll was on the doorstep. _Then_ he had requested.

Point was, the day was October 31st, so Halloween night, and some time in the 90’s, Fortwright had decided to consider the mansion a part of itself, and all the old rumours of its hauntedness weren’t even a thing anymore. Harry hated it.

What he hated even more was the commercial developers that kept banging on his door with loud pleas for him to sell his mansion so they could destroy the forest and build an office park with department stores and maybe a mall, and all other kinds of bullshit he hated the concept of.

“It will always be this day once a year,” Louis laughed, lying across the couch and indulging in his new hobby to pass the time, and it wasn’t something anyone might suspect, but it brought him a great deal of peace and accomplishment—knitting. _Well_ , crocheting specifically, but Harry only ever called it knitting.

“If Martin and Tanner would get off their butts and do this for me, I wouldn’t mind it so much,” Harry said, amazed Martin had the balls to claim he wasn’t feeling well and hide in his room all night for every single Halloween.

“You don’t have to open the door for these kids, Harry,” Louis reminded for what felt like the hundredth time, not even looking up from his scarf-in-training when Harry whipped around on his stool by the front door to glare at him.

“You know I can’t say no to these fuckings kids,” Harry bit, opening the front door when the clock hit seven-thirty because that was the general time when kids and families began making their way around the neighborhood, leading them down the dirt path to his opened gate one after the other. “Plus, I already bought the candy...what good would it do if we don’t give it out? Not like we’re gonna eat it.”

Now that people paid attention to his house, it was the biggest attraction on a spooky night such as this, and he understood that, and he wanted to be accommodating for reasons he didn’t understand, but it was no matter. What _was_ the matter was the attention also dragging in those developers...that was a giant problem. And he’d happily give all the kids’ happy squeals on Halloween up just so those rancid men never found his place again.

“Then stop whining,” Louis said mercilessly, turning the TV back off mute to catch the cringey but classic showing of _Halloweentown_ on the Disney Channel. Please don’t judge him—he’d found it accidentally one year in the late 90’s and really loved the soundtrack...years later and he still did.

“You and that film,” Harry said to himself, squinting his eyes into the distance because he thought he’d seen—yeah, he had. Flashlights. They were already coming. “That was fucking fast.”

“We’re the best for Halloween,” Louis said, contently sinking into the couch with his yarn and crochet sticks.

“Well you certainly terrify me,” Harry teased, throwing a wink to Louis before lifting the plastic pumpkin basket into his lap and turning around to focus on the approaching children.

The sound of Harry’s extended fangs made Louis smile, as the concept did every year, because this was the only day where they could be themselves and the unsuspecting would go along with it—even compliment them on the lifelike vibes they produced. He dropped his own and looked forward to the kids’ squeals each time Harry hissed. Happy Halloween indeed.

 

\---

 

Somehow the commercial developers had pieced together to come knocking on the door right at or after sundown, and that was a giant loss for Harry and Louis, whose lures of ‘forgetting this place’ still wouldn’t work for longer than a few days. They kept coming—and every time, the dwellers of the mansion would be awake for it. As they were now.

“I’m not selling my fucking mansion,” Harry snarled, showing a great amount of restraint by keeping his fangs away from his speech.

Louis sighed from the couch, still tired from the rough rounds of sex he and Harry had shared last night after the last wave of trick-or-treaters had waddled up the porch steps in their adorable costumes. It seemed less and less were coming these days, as opposed to the armies of the 90’s, and maybe in the near future, the practice would be one of history, but he’s getting off track here.

“Sir, I beg you and Mr. Martin to reconsider—we would pay you graciously. More than we are offering any other homeowner we’ve dealt with. This land is beautiful—”

“This land isn’t even safe,” Harry argued, making the classic argument he did every time a group of these bastards showed up. “There are random cliffs and drops and uneven hills everywhere. I don’t know what shopping centre you think you could build, but it would be highly impractical. I am not...selling...my house. And that’s final. You need to leave and don’t come back,” he stressed, putting all his lure into the eye contact he had with the man.

“Yes, of course, Sir. Good day,” the man said in a daze, gathering his clipboard from the railing he’d set it on and stumbling down the steps to get back to his car.

Harry slammed the door so hard the windows shook, and Louis was quick to set his scarf down (still the same scarf because he took this hobby slow) and approach him. “Harry…”

“We need Anges. I need something. I’m gonna start killing them soon, and I don’t want the attention of the police—I want to stay here,” Harry growled, pacing back and forth and gnawing on his knuckle in concentration.

“What could Anges do?” Louis asked, waving at Tanner as he walked by without looking.

“I don’t know, give me your phone,” Harry huffed, holding his hand out expectantly and even snapping when Louis didn’t do it right away.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis sighed, pulling his T-mobile Sidekick from his pocket and dropping it into Harry’s annoying palm. It had just come out this year and he didn’t want Harry to break it, like he broke everything else, but he had to appease him. Oh, don’t get him started on cell phones—technology only continued to blow him away, and this pocket world was no different.

Harry was careful with the phone as he replayed what had happened to him when he broke Louis’ last one in his head. It hadn’t been pretty. He dialed the number for Agnes and pressed the little green phone outline button to call her, bringing it to his ear and biting his lip when the dial tone began. He needed her to answer to calm his panicking self.

Two, three, four grating rings passed by until a click finally sounded through, and Harry’s slouch straightened into perfect posture at once. “Hello?”

“Oh...Harry?” Agnes asked in confusion, obviously having expected Louis’ voice on the other side of the line.

“Yeah, it’s me. Did I wake you up?” Harry asked, realizing he should have checked the time here before calling out for Scotland—to be honest, he didn’t have a clue what time it was in Idaho right now, and he was here.

“No, just about to sleep, though—it’s five,” Anges informed, her voice dragging out on the last word as she led into the question, “Why are you calling, love?”

“Quite simple, Agnes. I desperately need your help. Your expertise.”

“Oh,” Agnes said, a little worriedly if you asked Harry. “Oh dear...what is it that you need, Harry?”

“I need you to hide my forest,” Harry stated bluntly, jumping right into the specifics before he was asked any questions. “Make it so that no random human ever enters here _ever_. Whether that be making it invisible, just not letting them notice it, whatever it has to be. I want it and my house to not exist to the human world at all.”

“Concealment spell,” Agnes said, more so to herself, emitting a soft grumble and then explaining her blatant hesitance. “I’m sorry to say this, but I can’t help you... _but_ ,” she said quickly, unknowingly just as Harry had opened his mouth to demand why, “my son can.”

Upon hearing that part, Louis scooted in closer, staring into Harry’s confused orbs with his own and wondering why she couldn’t perform something her son could...especially something so seemingly simple. “Why?” he found himself asking, giving up his eavesdropping whereabouts but he hardly thought that would be an issue.

“Well…” Agnes began, clearing her throat and sighing into the mouthpiece of her cell phone. “I’m not exactly...normal in the mortality field,” she said, not getting through to the Elders because they’d already considered this.

“Of course you’re not. You’re from the fifteen hundreds, technically mortal or not, that’s fucking impressive,” Louis said, only having a flash idea of what else she could be getting at when a gruff voice asked for the phone and he was proved correct.

“She’s one of you,” Cináed said clearly, the force of that truth nearly physically slapping Harry across the face.

“Oh shit?” Harry coughed, removing the phone from his ear to think for a second and then bringing it back. “How long?”

“I turned her when Conall was...four? Yeah, four. It was just never necessary to mention until now,” he said, like that made all the difference in Louis and Harry’s offended minds.

“Well shit. Okay,” Louis said, taking the phone from Harry’s hand and putting it on speakerphone so he didn’t seem rude, even though Harry would be able to hear regardless. “So...but Conall can do this?”

“Conall can do anything,” Cináed assured, sounding far too comfortable in that statement for Louis and Harry to regard this powerful Conall without fear. He just sounded...way too capable.

“Can it be...forgive me for asking, but can it be soon?” Harry asked, cringing because pissing Cináed off was the very last thing he wanted to do in this world.

“Hold on,” Cináed said, giving time for Harry to release his strained tension and wait anxiously for the consensus. The two waited for a short while as quieted and indecipherable murmurs were passed back and forth between the parents, and then a scratching sound snapped them to attention when the phone was lifted in someone’s hand.

“We can come now if you want,” Agnes said, shocking them both from the instant response to Harry’s earlier pining. Neither had expected to receive help this soon, but this particular family wasn’t known for messing around. They got shit done.

“Uh, now? Yeah, now could work, I mean...do you need the location?” Louis asked, waving Harry off with a gesture that said he wanted a map to consult.

“No, I remember it well. Just from that time you pointed it out. I know where to go,” Agnes said.

“Harry, nevermind!” Louis called, turning back to the phone and scrambling for what to say now. “Are you sure you’re not troubled in doing this?” he asked, feeling selfish as he had nothing to offer in return for their selfless assistance.

“Don’t worry about that, love. And I’m not troubled whatsoever, my son is the only magical creature left in this household,” she reminded, trying to comfort them but only shifting their focus of guilt to concern the all-powerful Conall instead, whom they didn’t know or have any kind of relationship with yet.

“Alright well, thank you in advance,” Louis said, smiling at Harry to say he was glad to see his wish come true.

“Mmhm. We’ll be there in the next hour for sure,” Agnes said, throwing out a goodbye to Harry and then hanging up the call to apparently get ready to appear in their house after all these years after a moment’s notice.

Harry hummed in content surprise and looked around at the state of their living room, finding more than three things out of place and considering them unacceptable if they were to be in the presence of an Earth-born God. “Martin!”

 

\---

 

“So they could just...any minute?” Martin asked for the sixth time, having wrung his hands together for about twenty-five now out of nerves. Nerves to be seeing the most powerful vampire in the world with Azazel gone, and that original immortal’s son (of ambiguous species) so soon after putting them all out of his mind. His friends could think whatever they wanted, but Cináed was far too terrifying for Martin to consider a friend.

“Yes, and they can smell fear, so you better be careful,” Louis teased, making spooky gestures with his hands and only intensifying those gestures when Martin darted forward like he might hit him. Perhaps only Harry’s presence stopped him.

“What about Agnes, Martin? I love Agnes, she’s great,” Tanner said, trying to make his lover see the bright side to this apparent catastrophe.

“Yeah, she’s fine,” Martin agreed, heavy emphasis put on she’s to really highlight his opinion that she was the _only_ one who was fine. “But we still don’t even know what that now thirty-eight-old child is capab—”

“I’d shut up now,” Harry hissed, the distant and unmistakable scents of Agnes and Cináed appearing some odd kilometre or so away from the house, in the eastern side of the forest, and they were clearly joined by a third scent that had every mansion-dweller quaking with oblivious fear. What in the _fuck_ was _that_?  

“Definitely a new species,” Louis mouthed, lacking the confidence to whisper, or really do anything but stand there like a statue and hope all these interactions blew right past him.

The scents rushed forward in the breath of a moment, and then the telltale rapping on the chamber door took place—this was it. The moment of truth; the exposure of the mystery; the—

“Fine, _I’ll_ get the door,” Louis huffed when no one moved, breaking his comfortable pose of _rigid_ to let this nameless threat or innocent calamity (pardon him, he means beautiful creation) of Cináed and Agnes into his direct path. _Here goes nothing._

He gripped the doorknob and swung the squeaky thing open, eyes spearing right past the original and his witch-turned-vampire to take in… “Zeus fucking in the _fucking sky_ ,” he breathed, actually falling to his knees because it didn’t matter how fucking old he was—Conall was his superior.

“I believe that _is_ how the legend goes,” Conall mused in a deep, honey-like but sort of scratchy voice, rich with an English accent and laced with intrigue.

Louis could only stare. Conall’s beauty was unfathomable, and that made perfect sense, considering his parents, but he’d be lying if he said he would have had the chance to prepare for it. It was ridiculous. And not to mention, Conall might have been thirty-eight years old, but he’d apparently quit aging some time in his twenties, for he looked as young as Louis and Harry did, and he had this aura about him that just...he just…

“Are you going to invite us in, you twat, or do I have to stomp on you?” Cináed bit, his tone reacting with Louis’ immortal self because he couldn’t very well deny his maker entry.

“Pardon me,” Louis choked, scooting quickly on his knees across the floor and waving his arm to prompt them indoors like some child whose parents they’d come to visit were getting ready upstairs.

“You’re Alexander the Great,” Conall said, pausing unlike his parents to get the legend off his knees. “Don’t dare bow for me,” he said, reaching out and boldly holding the historical figure under his chin to guide him to his feet.

Louis swallowed hard and stood as he was suggested to, coming eye level (nearly, he was still way shorter) with the amber-haired, colourful-eyed, flawless-skinned, full-lipped and literal _calamity_ , of which he could now accurately consider him. Someone like this shouldn’t exist. “I wasn’t bowing,” he muttered, his pride doing the talking because he didn’t fancy the idea of bowing to the Gods themselves.

“Lose all feeling in your legs then,” Conall corrected, leaving him by the door as he walked further inside to greet the other vampires in the house.

 _The nerve_ , Louis thought, annoyed he’d be forever stuck in a messy black hole of thoughts when around this being. He wouldn’t ever be able to be himself, that was for sure. Even his normal blinks could be taken as rude gestures.

“Do I matter yet?” Agnes accused when Louis finally shuffled into the small crowd, opening her arm for a hug of which Louis happily walked himself into. 

“Hey Agnes,” Louis said breezily, holding her a lot tighter than he may have a few decades ago because she wasn’t nearly as fragile now. “You look basically the same as before,” he added, pulling back to look at her face. She’d already been partially immortalized before, and even changing her species didn’t change hardly anything regarding how powerful and wise she looked.

“Thanks love,” she laughed, changing the shoulder of which her braid rested over and straightening out her dress. “My experience with the age twenty seven was already tiresome...can’t imagine the even longer future of it ahead of me.”

“How have you two been?” he asked, sliding his hands down to hold hers between them. He was innocently waiting for that answer when Cináed appeared right beside him and glared him into the floor, so Louis slid back and crossed his arms. “Still so fucking sensitive.”

“What a surprise,” Conall suddenly said, walking toward the vampire he’d been shamelessly staring at the entire time since his entry.

Louis hadn’t noticed, but now that he really looked around, it was obvious that Harry was nervous as all fuck, and Martin taking up careful guard right behind him was a clear sign that tension had been running rampant in the living room.

“What?” Harry asked, caught between the impulse to get to the bottom of that statement, and run full speed in the complete opposite direction.

“I suppose it _was_ fate after all,” Conall said, leaning in and creating an opposing magnetic force that equally pushed Harry in a backward lean. “I won’t bite—I don’t really need to,” he said, knowing his heartbeat (the only one in the room) would be more than loud enough to be heard.

“Can you extrapolate on the fate thing?” Harry nearly squeaked, unsure of whether the impression of him this rebel of nature had was a good thing or not.

“Hmph—that would be telling,” Conall replied cheekily, continuing to dwell in his racing thoughts and taking a seat on the couch. “A little Idahoan town called Fortwright…”

“...Never a dull moment,” Harry said to himself, on a weird edge now that his ice with this being had broken in such a way. What the fuck was he on about? Did he always talk like this?

“We don’t always understand him either,” Cináed said, marking the first time in history the original vampire had _ever_ been relatable.

“Well, let’s all sit, that’ll calm the waters,” Agnes suggested, leading by example and waiting until everyone had found a spot before continuing. “Okay...so basically, for this spell to have the best outcome for _you_ , you should have anyone who regularly comes here come now because once it’s done, you’ll have to walk outside the boundaries to let anyone in. No one will be able to find it except for the ones who were here inside the walls when the spell was cast,” she informed, opening her arm for Conall to scoot closer to her.

“Guess we should call Harlock and Zayn, then,” Louis murmured to Harry, who nodded and glanced over at Martin to put him on phone duty.

“Now?” Martin asked, half-standing and beginning to drag Tanner up with him.

“Yeah, have Harlock bringing anyone who would feel like coming, and I doubt Zayn will be too busy,” Harry said, waving him off and then turning back to his formidable guests.

“Are any of them far away? Because I could go fetch them if need be,” Conall said, leaning forward and resting his forearms just above his knees.

“Mmm no, Zayn’s just a few miles from here, and Harlock...could be here in fifteen minutes,” Louis said, trying to calculate how long it would take to run to Fortwright from Lockhart—fifteen minutes sounded about right, unless it took longer on account of Jenner.

“What about the Sparrows?” Harry asked, trying to cover all their closeby bases even if California was relatively far from Idaho.

“They’re not regular,” Louis reasoned, having thought the same thing but excused it when he pondered the logistics. “If they were to visit, we’d just have to go outside the borders and show them the way.”

“Alright—so this will really work?” Harry asked, turning his attention to Conall even if he wanted to do anything but. “I mean, humans just...naturally won’t ever come here?”

“Correct,” Conall said, nodding and twiddling with the ends of his long and shaggy amber hair. “The only creatures able to ever focus on the forest at all will be the ones you invite to. Developers will never bother you again. Their focus will be far from here for commercialization purposes,” he assured, thinking of how much easier this would be to do than sending this forest to another dimension entirely. He could do that if needed, but he’d rather not.

“Wow—and you got this from Agnes?” Harry asked, unable to stop the flow of his rampant curiosity surrounding Conall and all his mysterious...mysteries.

“I got most everything from my mother. Her spells were practically hardwired into me like my blood and tissues. I need only wish for something, and that thing occurs, classic and traditional _magical_ methods aside—her spells were my natural abilities I didn’t need to hone,” he informed, comfortable with his type of discussion because he understood the desire for knowledge better than anyone.

“Yes, even my best abilities were in him as a young child,” Agnes huffed, still put off about that because she’d looked so very forward to teaching magic in the usual way to pass things along, but she hadn’t needed to—which had been fascinating, but also a letdown.

“But you said _most_ everything from your mother,” Louis said, having caught that specification very clearly.

“Of course...there are many things I got on my own,” Conall said, like that should have gone without saying, and perhaps it should have, but still…

“Like what?” Harry asked, only wondering after he’d said it if he actually wanted to know.

Conall merely smirked in response and took a deep breath, closing his eyes to gather his concentration and then snapping them back open, and that was when shit got weird. Louis was floating. “What the fuck!” he screeched, glancing wildly around to discover everything in the room, including the furniture was in the same boat. “Did you just _cancel gravity_?” he balked, amazed that his parents’ faces showed no fascination at all. What else had they seen him do?

“Manipulated it,” Conall corrected, snapping his fingers and causing every wayward object and creature to crash back down to the ground.

Louis squeaked and bounced right off the couch to the floor below, throwing his body up into a sitting position to gawk at the boy like the enigma had just sprouted wings—though that was probably possible for this boy. “Yes, of course. What an important distinction in the grand scheme of things,” he muttered, dusting off his clothes even if no dust had collected on them.

“What else?” Martin coughed, stumbling down the hall with Tanner in tow because evidently the gravity _manipulation_ had reached them in the kitchen too.

“You probably don’t want to know. Besides, that’s not why I’m here,” Conall said, crossing one lengthy leg over the other and finicking with his boot buckle.

“That’s right—you got in touch with everyone?” Harry asked, twisting around to look over the back of the couch as his butler crossed the floor toward the fireplace.

“Yeah, they’ll be here any second,” Martin confirmed, scratching at his chin and very obviously fighting to look everywhere but at the creature on the opposite couch.

“I hope I did the right thing,” Conall said to Harry Harry, having dedicated most of his attention on him this whole time. “I’ll find out sooner or later.”

“I—what?” Harry stuttered, wishing Conall would just speak normally so he didn’t have to keep tripping over responses. What the fuck did that even mean? “Are you talking about the barrier?” he asked, really hoping he wasn’t having second thoughts or something.

“No, not at all. Forget I said anything. I just cower in the face of fate,” Conall brushed aside, his eyes still searching the air for an answer he still clearly wanted, even if he wouldn’t outwardly press the topic any further.  

“You really know how to make someone uncomfortable,” Harry said carefully, feeling a wave of relief when Conall smiled, but no response could come because Zayn made his grand entrance at that moment.

“Okay, I don’t know what’s going on in there, but it smells fucking odd,” Zayn’s voice boomed from outside the front door, his scent a mere hint compared to the one that was radiating throughout everyone’s nostrils. It made sense that he went unnoticed.

“Come in,” Harry called, finally looking away from Conall after his door opening took over his peripherals. What he saw shocked him because actually, Harlock, Jenner, Stacey, Jet, Zayn, and Niall all waltzed in, proving even further how distracted his senses truly were. “Did you decide to meet up?” he asked, knowing even as he said it that no one would be paying attention to him.

Jenner let out a choked squeal and flew practically face-first into the floor, slapping both palms down on the wooden panels and shaking from fear, adoration, and the silent sobs that wracked his body all at once. “None surpass you,” he pledged in a shrill tone, so tense because the magic pouring from Conall’s aura was nearly cutting off his air supply.

“Jenner Cromwell, please don’t,” Conall said, choosing to stay where he was instead of getting up to go comfort him because he guessed the redhead might actually run away if he got too close.

“A name as worthless as mine should not be uttered from a mouth like yours,” Jenner wailed, causing a wide range of emotions to be felt among his familial friends; embarrassment from Harlock, pride from Conall’s parents, amusement from Louis and Harry, and varying levels of shock from everyone else.  

“Your name is not worthless, you dingus, get up,” Harlock muttered, a bit peeved that someone other than him was receiving such degrading worship from his own lover. He tried to pull Jenner up by the shoulder, but the damn warlock stayed rooted, so he grabbed a fistful of the back of his collar and yanked him to his feet, coiling his arm around his lower back to keep him upright, and thereby, smushed  against him where he belonged.

“I am used to this from warlocks and witches, but I wish you wouldn’t, and especially not you folks here—you were a member of the fellowship that saved this society with my parents when I was still within my mother’s womb. I should be fanatic to meet you, not the other way around,” Conall asserted, forcing eye contact on the fiery warlock and imploring him to heed that desire.

“Uh—errr,” Jenner stumbled, nodding like a fool and practically hiding behind Harlock, who would have said his piece next if Zayn hadn’t interfered, but he was sort of fine with that.

“It’s a—a pleasure to meet you,” Zayn said to the ever so calm and collected Conall, his knees locked firmly together as though he had a tail tucked between them.

“Same goes for us,” Harlock added because he figured now or never would be the time to speak, nodding his head in respect and leading Jenner to the furthest seat away possible because he was still a wreck.

“So, show me the borders you want,” Conall suggested to Harry, standing from his seat and stretching his long arms over his head.

“Right,” Harry said, leading the way across the room and opening the front door for Conall to walk through.

Louis met Harry at the doorway and they stepped out together, leaving everyone else inside because they probably wouldn’t have budged if they’d been asked. Conall had already made it to the dirt path that led across from the uphill driveway, and the sight of his side profile as he tilted his face up to the moon made Harry and Louis _both_ feel something, so neither felt guilty.

“I don’t want to run, come here,” Conall said as he met eyes with Harry, unbuttoning his black long-sleeve shirt and sliding it off his shoulders out of nowhere and confusingly suggesting much more than border searching.

“Well, I won’t say _no_ —” Louis chuckled like some old and proper dame, dropping to the ground with an ear-splitting shriek when Conall revealed the unforeseen reason he would remove his shirt. He had...he had fucking...he had… “YOU ACTUALLY HAVE WINGS?!?”

Apparently, that was correct. Out from his back like a fictitious angel had sprung two quite expansive black wings, much like a bat’s, and as foreign a sight it was, it made the most sense on someone like him. Of course, the black of them might have suggested more of a demon appearance than angel, but Louis and his surrounding creatures were a bit on the darker side of things to begin with. Still… “How in the _world_ is that _possible_?”

“Mother’s womb was a dark place. Lot of shit happened in there, whether I can remember or not—this is one of them,” Conall answered fleetingly, beckoning Harry over because he hadn’t yet moved and he’d prefer to get this on with if he was only going to be a specimen under a microscope.

“You definitely called it, Louis,” Harry said with a nervous gulp, making brief eye contact before he stepped his first foot toward the winged Conall. “Black magic enclosing a fetus _did_ have serious effects…”

“I’d like to call them _amplifications_ , now come here,” Conall huffed, reaching his arm out and yanking on an invisible rope that sent Harry flying right into his chest.

“Ngh!” Harry muffled, only having a second to process what had just happened before both of Conall’s arms snaked around him, and then he was fucked. “Ah Jupiter,” he cursed, far too pleased with this position to feel good about it. “No offense, Louis,” he said, turning his head around to send his apologies to his lover, who no doubt could tell how happy he was about this.

“ _None_ fucking taken,” Louis assured with his palms up, imagining himself what that might feel like and only harboring envy on Harry’s part.

“Hold onto me,” Conall said, waiting until Harry nervously wrapped his arms around his shoulders to take off with a strong beat of his wings up toward the sky.

“ _When_ am I _finally_ gonna see it all?” Louis wondered aloud, beside himself that after all his time being around, he still had not experienced and/or witnessed all that existence had to offer. When the fuck would he stop being surprised?

“ _What_ the fuck,” the voice of Zayn deadpanned, startling Louis who hadn’t known anyone was behind him.

Louis spun around and found all of his friends in varying distances from the opened front door to where he stood, each with the same expression on their upturned faces that he wore, and for once (at least in a long time), he really didn’t have anything to say. “I cannot,” he stated bluntly, hoping that got his message across. He simply could not.

Up in the air, where the voices below were much more muffled, Harry and Conall hovered in their necessary-but-felt-like-it-shouldn’t-be-embrace. Harry was just about to ask ‘what now?’ when Conall spoke first, his voice hushed and admittedly deathly attractive.

“Follow the barrier you want with your eyes.”

Harry had questions but he decided to just do what he was asked, yelping when he felt Conall’s conscious mind enter his own, and trying to ignore how invasively agitating it was. He started at the gate and dragged his gaze out half a mile beyond the dirt road, knowing full well that inside his head, Conall could not only see what he did, but also be privy to his intention.

Conall focused harder to get through the landfill of side-thoughts bouncing around in Harry’s head, holding him closer and knocking his forehead above the vampire’s ear, hoping it would clear the air a bit, but it made the thoughts even louder. “Would you focus, please?”

“Uhh right,” Harry said, demonstrating some seriously impressive mental power to block off all swooning and devote his every fibre into showing the barrier he wanted. When his scope turned too far left to see, Conall automatically turned them in the air to go along with him, and the only thing Harry had to do now was deny his peripheral vision from picking up on the soft halo of amber hair that Conall’s wing beats (he still can’t believe he’s saying that) were fanning along his chest and neck. Wow, too late.

“You’re impossible,” Conall grumbled, a little peeved he had to concentrate _this_ hard just because of his company’s uncommitted cooperation.

“Please don’t speak,” Harry said, partly because of the voice, but greater partly because Conall speaking those words had caused his lips to graze Harry’s earlobe. He had an ear thing.

Conall was tempted to remind him he could hear every inner rambling that passed through Harry’s mind, but he knew that would waste time, so he shut up as told and continued taking in the barrier, turning when he needed to and sometimes pausing for Harry to get his shit together. It took a damn while.

Through all the hiccups and hardships, they finally got back to the gate in which they’d started and Harry couldn’t be happier or more disappointed, tightening his grip on Conall’s shoulders when they began to descend. “So you’ll remember that?” he asked, making a mistake he didn’t have time to regret by looking into Conall’s way-too-close eyes.

“I’m not a goldfish like you,” Conall deadpanned, his heavy accent making his insult that much more endearing in Harry’s opinion.

Harry merely nodded in admittance to the claim (though his memory was actually far above average) and kept his eyes toward the ground to which they were headed, making accidental eye contact with Louis and suddenly feeling _very_ guilty over the whole thing. Louis’ face was hard to decode and that generally didn’t mean anything particularly good, but he’d deal with that later. They floated down closer and closer, and when they only had two metres to go, Conall stole his attention again.

“Take my hand,” he said, letting go of Harry’s torso with one arm while he strengthened the other and held his hand out expectantly.

Harry blinked at the perfectly manicured hand for a second, trying to keep in mind how old he was and how young Conall was for the sake of his pride—it was honestly harder than it should have been. At least he could have these thoughts without being intruded upon now.

“Today, Mr. Styles,” Conall urged, raising an eyebrow at Harry’s instant protest to his choice of wording.

“I’ve been on this rock for over a thousand years,” Harry mentioned, making it clear he was going somewhere further with that but getting interrupted regardless.

“And I had no beginning,” Conall clapped back with a low tone, sending uncommon shivers of genuine uneasiness down Harry’s spine—maybe even fear.

“What does that—”

“I know how shit actually works,” Conall said, forcefully taking Harry’s wrist in his hand and unwrapping the arm that sat around his shoulders so he dropped and hung down by one hand.

“I wouldn’t break if I just fell, you know,” Harry said, sighing in irritation as he was lowered down like a piece of equipment by the infuriating angel-crane above him.

Conall graced that with no response and hovered down until Harry’s feet firmly hit the lackluster grass, taking off as soon as that was accomplished and instantly soaring east to set the damn barrier and be done with it.

Louis, now finally with access to his starstruck lover, marched over to his spot and slapped a hand down on his shoulder, making him jump and whip around like a jewel thief with his hand on a diamond.

“My bad,” Harry said, knowing any other babbled excuse would get him nowhere.

“I’m so incredibly jealous of you. That was not fair at all, and I’m most likely going to kill you for it,” Louis said with the sweetest smile he’d spared all night, digging his nails into Harry’s back and chuckling when he squirmed. “Really though, what’s it like to fly?” he asked as he walked them back toward the mansion.

“Loud. Louder than I would have expected,” Harry answered, glancing up at the air he’d previously been in like he could still see himself...as if that made any sense.

“Louder, what do you mean louder?” Louis asked, genuinely perplexed at that description because it had definitely been the last he’d expected.

“Uh, his...his... _wings_ ,” Harry said, marinating in the word because it sounded so ridiculously wrong to say. “They’re loud...when they’re right next to you...and occasionally hitting you in the back,” he added, still spaced and even a little clumsy on the walk to the front door.

“Your son is—” Louis began, speaking to Agnes, whom he’d caught the gaze of as soon as he’d looked up from the ground.

“Something else?” Agnes guessed, biting her lip as she grinned because she apparently thought this was all fun and games.

“One way of putting it,” Louis muttered, finally unwinding his arm from Harry’s waist now that they were back in the conglomerate of their group.

“I’d advise you to think hard about any comments you might want to make in regards to my son,” Cináed warned, stepping closer to Agnes and staring Harry and Alexander down with malice in his eyes.

“Calm down, old and dangerous one, he’s perfect,” Louis scoffed, crossing his arms and delighting in the fact that Cináed now looked stuck halfway between a smile and a frown. He loved conflicting his maker. “But you’re barking if you think I’m not gonna ask about the wings.”

“That’s actually the easiest thing to explain,” Agnes said, snorting when she realized she’d have to follow that up immediately by the impatient looks on her friends’ faces. “The black magic in my body can be used as an explanation for almost everything about him. It might not make much sense to you, but all the common capabilities of black magic were essentially instilled in him automatically—that includes what’s generally known and referred to as shape-shifting. Er...he also inherited not-so-common magical capabilities, but I think I made my point.”  

“Okay, I’ll accept that,” Louis said with a strained tone, glancing over to Jenner, who gave a helpless shrug to say he was just as confused. “What’re the uncommon things?” he pried, making use of his time with the secretive parents while they were here. “What _can’t_ be explained?”

“Besides the wings?” Agnes laughed, omitting the truth of how very difficult something like modifying was, even to her. Manipulating the world around you was as simple as breathing, but changing the very makeup of your body and what you were, was not— _especially_ for someone already outputting so much magic into stopping the natural aging process. Too much self-change at once. “Too much to get into. But things that can’t be explained...uh...who he is. Where he came from,” she mumbled, getting cut off anyway by her lover’s quick hand over her mouth.

“Aggie,” Cináed groaned in exasperation, dropping his forehead on her shoulder and shaking his head slowly back and forth. “You just opened the biggest can of fucking wor—”

“Wouldn’t that have been _you_?” Louis prompted, squinting his eyes and looking nowhere but into Agnes’s so Cináed couldn’t distract him from his answer-seeking.

“Hrmph,” Agnes huffed, removing Cináed’s hand without the mass amount of effort she may have needed to use as a human, powerful or not. “Yeah, that was a mistake, but I can’t back down now. Not if you value a life of peace,” she said to her lover, making an accurately relevant point because Louis wouldn’t stop until he got more details.

“What is my point in this world?” Cináed groaned, being his usual dramatic self and stumbling away in sheer finality with the whole situation.

“Right, well...we all come from somewhere,” Agnes began, talking fast because Conall would be done soon, and whether he could hear her anyway, she’d rather do it with him out of eyesight. “The otherworld. Which has many unreachable places inside it, Nol being one of them—”

“Nol, what’s Nol?” Louis interrupted, figuring it had something to do with the originals if she was bringing it up.

“Cináed’s world,” Agnes responded, jumping right back into her point before Louis brought up a hundred side questions concerning Nol. “I’m less familiar with the otherworld than you may be, Alexander, but I know more _about_ it than you do—neither I, nor his father have the slightest idea where in that realm his soul could have come from. Because that soul is unlike any other known anywhere. Not just species, it’s clear he’s the only one of his kind, but spiritually, his very essence within, is something either very rare, or new in a way that...he just...he’s my special baby,” she cooed, overcome with pride for such a unique and perplexing son.

“Okay, so wait...I can barely process this,” Louis admitted, putting every memory and fun fact he had on the otherworld into the forefront of his mind for naught. It was a puzzle he would never be able to solve.

“I don’t get it either. He can travel all the realms without lifting a finger when his father before him needs eight siblings to even try. It’s like he knows and can do everything, but who taught him is another impossible mystery. And he won’t tell me, the stinker. Says I’ll know when I need to. Oh, I love him,” Agnes sighed, turning her eyes to the sky when she caught movement above the trees.

Harry and Louis turned too, along with their previously silent and flabbergasted friends, and Louis swore everyone but Agnes gulped when Conall came gliding into view. It didn’t take him long to reach their spot, and the float down to land and walk the rest of the way was not only soundless and graceful, but also beautiful as all fuck.

“I _will_ tell you when you need to know,” Conall said with a lopsided smile, freaking everyone but his parents out as he went to Agnes’s side.

Louis was staring hard at the oversized batty wings, so he could do nothing but inwardly screech when they disappeared—although, the term ‘disappeared’ might not be entirely representative of what really happened. It was more that they were retracted into some invisible door through his back, leaving no trace they’d been there in the first place. “Anything _else_ I should be expecting from you?” he asked, not quite meaning to but he’d been deathly curious.

“No,” Conall said flippantly, taking his black button-down shirt his mother handed to him that Louis hadn’t even noticed her collect and fitting it back onto his body, lazily working on the buttons. “Nothing you’d handle well if you thought _that_ was a big deal.”

“Oh,” Louis barked, throwing his arms up and scoffing at the mere notion Conall was suggesting. “Of course—of _course_ that wasn’t a big deal.”

“Was that all you needed me for? If so, we’ll be going now,” Conall said, apparently making the decision himself because Agnes only shrugged when Louis looked to her.

“I mean I guess…” Louis said, not even close to satisfied with the knowledge he’d received but knowing urging Conall to unveil the secrets of himself would likely push him further away, and time was something they all had.

“Thanks for doing that, I do really appreciate it,” Harry said, finally ready to talk to him again after the shock of the whole flying thing.

“It was nothing—could have been faster, but you know well the reason for the delay,” Conall said with an actual wink, taking one of his parents hands in each of his and nodding to everyone else who had been standing nearby.

“Bye, Louis, I’ll call you,” Agnes said with a bright and happy smile, waving with her free hand at her friends.

“Yeah, for sure,” Louis said distractedly, boring his gaze into Conall’s shoulder blades and unintentionally stepping back in surprise when the creature turned around like he’d known and addressed him.

“If you’re really that jealous, I’ll fly with you next time,” the incorrigible enigma teased, grinning when Louis opened his mouth to tell him off and disappearing into thin air, leaving their outdoor group three bodies light.

“That little—” Louis began in a shout, collecting himself and taking a deep breath in anger. “Cináed didn’t even say goodbye,” he added just to find things to be mad at, rubbing at his temples and thinking everything over from an hour ago to now. _Nope. Nothing computes at all._

“I think we’re going to go home now,” Harlock announced, holding Jenner in his arms who looked a little further under the weather than Louis was comfortable with.

“You okay, Jen?” Louis asked, scooting closer to his pale friend and petting his curls.

“He held out while Conall was here, but his presence really affected him,” Harlock answered for the tired warlock, giving an assuring smile to Louis to tell him not to worry too much. He’d seen his lover like this a lot.

“I’m alright, Lou,” Jenner said quietly, closing his eyes and turning in toward Harlock’s chest to more or less hide from the world.

“Call me later,” Louis said as Harry gave Harlock a careful one-armed hug, the four of them stepping apart as one. “Love you.”

“Love you guys, too. All of you,” Harlock said, nodding to the other two couples present and taking off back toward Lockhart.

A collective silence fell after Harlock and Jenner’s departure, and Louis was just debating who would speak first when his first suspicion was confirmed—Niall.

“Well fuck me sideways, on a rollercoaster, on the moon, with a sandpaper dildo,” the blonde exclaimed, not straying far from his usual character at all in doing so.

“Do I have to?” Zayn asked, configuring how he would make that happen in real life for shits and giggles.

“I know how you feel,” Louis replied, leaning against Harry like he was a pillar, even if he was a bit unreliable at the moment. He still held him up.

“I mean what in the _world_ —” Tanner began, followed quickly by Martin who had an important correction to make.

“That’s the problem—he’s _not_ comparable to this world,” the butler pointed out, letting everyone marinate on that fact until he couldn’t take the awkward standing anymore. “Anyone want glasses?” he proposed, not needing to mention what would be in those glasses.

“To the kitchen!” Louis shouted, racing Harry to the front door who had also come to his senses at the concept of blood on his tongue. “I could use an entire bank.”

“So...maybe we’re joined on Earth by a beast more formidable than Azazel and Cináed combined, and probably their mysterious mother herself...and maybe if he were ever to veer off the path of decency, everything would be over in a nanosecond, but I mean…”

“Harry, where could you possibly be going with that?” Louis asked, not seeing Conall as anything too destructive as of yet, but still wondering what the upside to that thought train could be. “And before you snort at me, no, it’s _not_ obvious,” he added, knowing Harry had the tendency to unrightfully condescend when he let himself slack on the front of respect.

“I’ll never be pestered by developers or costumed children again... _obviously_ , Louis.”

∞

 

March 9th, 2018 -  

“No, it’s not fucking ‘ _Alexander_ ,’” Louis huffed, snatching the crossword puzzle out of Harry’s hands and slamming it down on the coffee table.

“What?” Harry balked, leaning back into the couch and crossing his arms in irritation. “A great general of history whose innovative, tactical deployment allowed his outnumbered force to destroy the Persians at Marathon. Sounds like something you’d do.”

“Marath—” Louis shouted, rearing his hand back like he would smack Harry across the face until he got a handle on his temper. “That was in 490 b.c., you nitwit, I wasn’t even alive. That was Miltiades—an _Athenian_ general—and you wouldn’t even had the box room for Alexander. So dumb,” he sighed, pushing the crossword back and smacking the pencil down atop it so Harry could erase his stupidity.

Harry took it back and glanced at the four letters he’d managed to scribble in, _Alex_. He did the quick math and redid it several times to make sure his case was solid. Then… “Louis, Miltiades and Alexander are both nine letters.”

Louis flinched in disbelief and turned painfully slowly to hit Harry with a glare, glad at least that he seemed terrified by it. “Go pick up any history book in this world, and I think you’ll find ‘ _The_ ’ was my middle name, and ‘ _Great_ ’ was my last, who the _fuck_ do you think I am—”

“Oh, sorry,” Harry giggled, falling over onto Louis’ lap and wrapping his arms around his hips. “My Great, Alexander The, how could I possibly forget?” he whined, hiding his smile in Louis’ thighs and playfully crying out when Louis grabbed a fistful of his hair.

“At least we figured out who’s on top tonight,” Louis whispered hotly into Harry’s ear, laughing along with him when his excited squirming tickled them both.

“No, I’ll still try,” Harry negated, sitting back up and pointedly holding the pencil to say ‘watch this.’ He erased the four letters he’d had and wrote Miltiades instead, tossing the whole thing aside when that was done and pulling Louis into his chest. “You were a better general than him anyway.”

Louis was inclined to accept that compliment, but a short memory of Hephaestion crept into his mind, and he couldn’t possibly. He did love to brag about how Great he was, and how well he lived up to that title, but the truth was he got a lot of people killed for little gain...he’d never say that out loud, though. He was the best ever. Period.

“Hey, do you ever…” Harry began, pausing with an inward choke and leaping from the couch in a panic.

“What? _What_?! What the fuck?” Louis squawked, searching wildly around the room for something he clearly missed.

“Breathe,” Harry ordered, the term itself sounding like some suggestion to calm down, but his tone the furthest from.

“Wha—”

“ _Breathe_ ,” Harry repeated impatiently, taking an exaggerated inhale through his nose and consequently growing more rabid about the unknown circumstance.

Louis, the ever-curious, did as he was told and took a whiff of the air, freezing his bones like an ice age had descended on his body because there was no way...this wasn’t real… “ _No_ fucking way…”

“Harry?!” Martin shouted, bursting out of his room and flying down the hallway with Martin in tow, both of them almost falling right over the ledge of the second story with how fast they’d run. “I must be out of my goddamn fucking mind because there is no way in _any_ realm in _any_ cosmos that _THAT_ is who I fucking think it—”

_Ding dong._

The doorbell rang like a biblical thunderstorm over a quiet null and all necks practically broke to look directly at said door, eyes wide and lips stuck apart in utter shock. Every second of silence lasted a lifetime, and Louis and Harry’s eyes met simultaneously, mentally debating to each other if this was reality, and what they were to do if so.

Eventually Louis reached out and smacked Harry hard toward the door, giving him two extra shoves until he really got his feet moving. Harry looked to him pleadingly, begging him not to make him do it, but Louis pursued, this time using his foot to propel Harry right up to the rug. If anyone was going to answer that haunted door, it would be the man of the house.

Harry grabbed the back of his neck and squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping tensed fingers around the door handle and bringing his other hand down to clutch at his chest. Moment of truth. He snapped his eyes open and grounded his feet like they had roots descending through the floorboards, ripping the door open and coming face to face with the only other creature to share his exact face.

With a high-pitched shriek like a thousand nails on a chalkboard, he slammed the door right back shut, spinning around to hyperventilate to Louis, who looked just as crazed as he probably did. He simply nodded to confirm what everyone had suspected, unable to process how he could possibly be serious about that. He then looked to Martin and Tanner, who were both hanging all the over the railing and holding hands like they were trying to crush each other, and their faces gave him a little bit of reassurance. At least _everyone_ was panicking and not just him.

He wanted that door to disappear more than anything, but that scent hadn’t moved an inch, and he knew he couldn’t stall this—if anything could be said about Auron Aelius, it was that he was one patient motherfucker. Harry stalked back to the door and swung it open like a band-aid, not letting himself fall prey to counting down from three twenty times, but as soon as he reestablished eye contact with Auron, he rather wished he _had_ been a little bitch about it.

“If I promised you it will be different this time, would you believe me?” Auron asked, his voice sounding the unexpected mix of eerily familiar, much like his own to his ears, but also new, fresh—not quite the same as it had been. Lighter? Higher?

“ _Pardon_?” Harry shoved out his throat, his every nerve ending clenched so hard he felt like he would shatter if he made any sudden movements.

“Look at me, Hayway...you know these eyes,” Auron said as though it was though it was burdensome for him to prove himself, when he knew as well as these creatures did why it would be hard to trust him.

Louis couldn’t take it anymore. With a nervous speed he didn’t know he had in him, he waltzed straight up to the doorway and shoved Harry aside, drinking in Auron’s features, head to toe, and landing on his eyes. Those malicious eyes that...actually...didn’t have much malice in them if he’s being honest. He also noticed someone else just behind Auron, but unfortunately when their eyes met, they couldn’t _unmeet_ , so he’d just have to figure out who that was later. “Auron.”

“Lexy,” Auron returned pleasantly, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets and cocking his head to the side, his rich brown hair falling to the side on account of gravity. “You look good.”

“Don’t you—don’t ‘ _Lexy_ ’ me, you fucking—don’t—don’t fucking—YOU SON OF A—” Louis screamed, having lunged right for Auron’s neck when that hidden individual behind him flew around and blocked his hands.

“Alexander, don’t!” he begged, getting in the King’s face to really make himself known, for a simple short distraction if nothing else.

Louis hissed and snarled until he picked up on who he was making such gestures at, widening his eyes and retracting his fangs to calm himself down. Dirty blonde fluffy hair and green eyes, tall, slender limbs, there was no one else. “Michael.”

“Babe, I don’t need you to protect me from Alexander,” Auron said in Michael’s ear, his forearm wrapped around Michael’s hips not escaping Louis’ notice.

 _Did that finally happen?_ “Don’t be so sure you don’t need protecting. You’re a...you...what...is _happening_ here?!” Louis demanded, his face permanently stuck in offended confusion until further notice. He probably would have asked it again, or at least something similar to it, but it was his turn to get shoved out of the way now that Harry was freed from his unresponsive trance. He didn’t even remotely fight it.

“Auron…” Harry said, stepping all the way up to his twin and grabbing him behind the neck to keep him in place. “Look at me,” he said quietly, leaning closer when Auron’s eyes cooperatively locked in on his. He had to see if it was missing; he had to know who he was looking at; which Auron he had before him.

“What you’re thinking—it’s right,” Auron said, confusing the fuck out of everyone who wasn’t them two (well, maybe Michael), but no one besides them two really mattered in this scenario.

“How _can_ it be?” Harry asked, crushing Auron into his chest and holding him tighter than should be painless before leaning back and staring at him some more.  

“I met someone in the otherworld,” Auron began, stepping past Alexander and Hadrian to walk inside and make himself comfortable. “Someone who brought me back to Michael, back to myself, and to my body...hello, butler,” he said to the pair leaned over the second-story railing, turning back around and falling into the biggest couch in the living room, Michael beside him where he should be.

“Oh, sure, come on in,” Louis grumbled, kicking the front door closed and joining Harry’s side across from the undead and vampiric, resurrected already-corpses-but-now-back-to-cognizant figures of Auron and Michael, the only safety between them a meager coffee table.

“You met someone who fixed your mind, took you straight out of the otherworld, brought you back to this world, with Michael, and back _into_ your bodies that I had buried in Rome?” Harry asked just to get it all out, amazed any creature could have the power to do that kind of miracle-work. “Was this the work of a God?” he asked next, fearing just for a moment that he may have been right about his Gods all along and should never have cursed them for any hardships he went through.

“Not particularly, no. May as well be one. Shall I tell you how it happened?” Auron suggested, turning to look behind him when the feet of Butler Boy and his frizzy-haired companion dropped to the first floor.

“Don’t mind us,” Martin said, his hand squeezed tightly around Tanner’s wrist as he led him around the couch and over to the loveseat closer to Harry and Louis. He felt much better this way.

“I’d like you to tell me everything, yes,” Harry said, finally sitting himself down now that he was nearly positive no surprise attacks would be coming from either impossible being. Though he should really stop with this notion that anything under the sun could ever be truly impossible—hasn’t he learned by now?

“Alright, well, it obviously started with getting stabbed…”

 

***

 

_“Well there goes my evening,” Auron said with a chuckle, taking in the forest clearing he’d ended up at and dropping his smile when he realized he’d been here before. “Did it have to be this forest?” he asked, backing up in his thoughts to allow the possibility that he was dreaming, just like he’d been every other time he’d been in this clearing in broad daylight. He could be…_

_No. He knew too much this time around. He knew exactly what had happened to him, and he knew he wouldn’t be waking up again. “For the love of the Gods, what am I supposed to…”_

_He paused. Something felt off with him—askew—aside from being truly dead. That was bound to have some sort of effect on the psyche, but this was different. His own mind felt different to think in, his illusionary body a different suit to be stuck in. “I’m not as angry as I should be,” he said, quickly looking around for a seat and taking one on that same damn log so he could properly think._

_“Why am I okay with this?”_

_Was the afterlife really so much calmer than reality that even he, an individual with a malicious mind that never shut the fuck up for longer than five minutes at a time, passed by five minutes without any incidents? He could get used to this. It almost felt like all the mania he’d suffered with had completely disappeared, and he didn’t want to trust this suspicion and be let down, but it did make sense that one wouldn’t carry such things over into the afterlife._

_His mind wandered, and he let it willingly, finally able to sit and ponder and reflect without getting taken over by intrusive thoughts he would helplessly act on. He didn’t know how long he’d sat on that log, for time probably meant next to nothing in a place like this, and he didn’t know if he would ever feel the passage of time again._

_Would he ever get out of this damn clearing and go somewhere else? Could he potentially find Azazel in this mess? Would he even want to? Where could he go with a free mind and no responsibilities? Most likely anywhere, but how could he get there? Would he get lonely here all by himself? Did he need or want company? “So many fucking questions, fuck, get a hold of yourself,” he chided, laying himself down sideways on the log to get some sleep if this realm would allow it._

_It certainly did._

 

_\---_

 

_Auron woke up to the sound of...trees getting cut down? Swinging axes. Construction work. Some far off explosions. “Okay, what the—” he grunted, opening his eyes and twisting around in the direction of the noise, stunned beyond comprehension when he figured out what the sound had been. Flaps of wings. Large wings at that, attached to the back of a overly attractive male humanlike specimen with pretty hair and a bone structure even he was envious of._

_The man, with an apple in his hand, swooped the rest of the way down to land a few metres from the log he was sat on, his eyes calculating and cold the whole time as if Auron was somehow intruding on his privacy. “Well you’re impressive,” he said bluntly, rubbing at his eyes and checking twice to make sure he’d actually seen what he’d appeared to. Yup, wing boy was still there._

_“What are you doing here in this place?” the male questioned, looking around to maybe see if there were ‘more of them’ nearby._

_“Me? This is my forest clearing, ask Lexy,” Auron replied, not giving one single shit that this boy wouldn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about._

_“I’ve been here far longer than you, ghostie,” the boy growled, stalking right up to Auron and getting dangerously close to his face._

_“Yeah, punk?” Auron bit, shoving back on the boy’s chest with both hands. He may be free of his mania, but his attitude was a whole different beast. “I was in this place when I was sort of alive—in my dreams. I think I’ll claim it now.”_

_Truth be told, he would have left this clearing at the earliest opportunity supposing he would have ever figured out how, but now that his ownership of it was being challenged, he suddenly had the urge to fight for it. Funny how that works._

_“That’s not up to you,” the boy snarled, grabbing Auron right around his neck and squeezing like he could just kill him again—like lack of air ever would have killed him to begin with._

_“What’s that gonna do, idiot?” Auron croaked, unable to deny that strangling in the afterlife did its usual job of limiting speech. “I’ll have you fucking know—that I never needed oxygen. For centuries and—centuries,” he bragged, kicking out with his leg and aiming for a spot males weren’t at all fond of._

_“Brat,” the boy spat, letting him go with a shove and stepping back out of kicking range. “You were a vampire?” he asked, now knowing exactly why this stranger would have such a knowing and unimpressed attitude concerning this realm._

_“Don’t ask me to prove it, I already tried,” Auron said, poking at his canine teeth in disdain. “They won’t come out.”_

_“They wouldn’t here,” the boy said, fixing his disheveled hair and blowing out a loud sigh. “I’m Conall,” he said, extending his hand for the once-vampire to take and bury the hatchet of their violent first impressions._

_“Conall, I’m...Bastion,” Auron said after a hopefully imperceptible pause, not knowing why he would hide his true identity but figuring that if he did it without thought, there was probably a good reason to, so he didn’t question it._

_“Bastion,” Conall repeated, squinting his eyes for a second before apparently letting it go. “Alright. Who turned you?” he asked next, curious if it had been any of his father’s siblings because that would spice things up a bit._

_Once again, Auron had the perplexing urge to lie, so he kept Azazel’s name far away, choosing instead to say “King Sejong.” That man hadn’t been anywhere near around in his birth era, but he didn’t think Conall here would know when he was from by just meeting in the otherworld._

_“Huh...what killed you?” he asked, taking a seat on the log he’d seen Bastion sitting on when he arrived._

_“My stupidity,” Auron replied, rolling his eyes and smiling fondly at the ground because whether or not it had pissed him off at the time, he’d finally done something noble in getting himself killed, so he could be proud now. And poor baby Hayway...he’ll always be sorry he made him do that._

_“Anything I can help you with?” Conall asked, taking one of the wings he hadn’t yet put back in his spine and scratching at the black, leathery webbed section by his ear to remove some specks of dirt._

_“What do you mean ‘help’?” Auron asked, shaking his head to steer the conversation in a more interesting direction. “And what species even are you?”_

_“Species?” Conall snorted, covering his grin as he laughed and crossing one leg over his other with the utmost of grace. “I don’t have anything but what I am. What I am is all I possibly have, and only I have it.”_

_“You mean there are no others?” Auron asking, reading between the lines of his superfluous speech and inferring that was probably the crucial detail he was obviously leaving out. No one talks like that if they’re not hiding something._

_“Very good,” Conall replied, leaning his elbows on his knees and smashing his chin into his palms. “So...like I asked, is there anything I can help you with? You’ll be stuck here a while if I leave you to your own devices.”_

_“You underestimate me,” Auron scoffed, holding on to his pride even if he was grossly out of bounds with this one._

_“Please, you don’t even know what this place is. This is my...what’s the term...stomping grounds?” Conall said inquisitively, holding his knuckles to his lips while he thought hard about whether he’d gotten that right._

_“I don’t know, probably,” Auron sighed, not understanding the words either but getting the point—Conall understood what he didn’t. “Then, in that case, I’d like to find someone here, and also meet a creature who can put consciousnesses right back where they came from, and have that creature do this for me four times,” he said bluntly, already gearing up for the laughter and denial that something of the like was even remotely possible._

_“That’s a bit more of a serious request than I expected... I can do all of that tenfold, though, don’t act like it’s some act of a God,” Conall assured with a chuckle, wiping his smile clean off his face and turning to fully face his new companion. “Why do you need this done?”_

_That was not the response Auron was expecting either. “Why?” he asked with a long pause to find the right words. “I have amends to make, and I think I would know how I could if this would work…” he said, leaning back with a huge groan and shaking his head in defeat. “But I don’t think I could anyway, aside from all that. The bigger problem is my mind. I’m an unstoppable psychopath down there, and I’m afraid I’d be right back where I was if I went down now...”_

_“Bastion,” Conall said, placing a hand on the boy’s knee and leaning forward to console his fears. He looked a bit caught off guard by it, but hopefully the expression was only shock, and not distaste mixed in with it. “Do you believe in fate?”_

_“Fate? I—”_

_“Don’t answer, I’ll tell you right now that you should,” Conall interrupted, saving time with the fate talk to get to the point. “I’ll make you a deal.”_

_“Okay,” Auron said, raising an eyebrow and expressing his interest wholeheartedly—he loved deals._

_“I’ll send your soul back down to the underground realm to live another human life, in any place of your choosing, and I won’t put myself anywhere near you at any point in time. If you end up finding me anyway, this plan of yours was meant to come to fruition. If you never find me, and you end up back here again, forget about it for good,” he said, never once breaking eye contact to be sure Bastion understood and agreed to the terms._

_“Deal,” Auron said with a sharp nod, hoping his efforts would be enough, even if it failed, if case he ever needed to explain himself in the future to relevant parties._

_“And don’t worry about your mind—I can fix that in the process. Along with bodily injuries that would have caused your death in the first place,” Conall added, smiling at the sudden light in Bastion’s eyes._

_“I...thank you,” Auron stuttered, fighting the embarrassing urge to cry in the face of a promise like that. Would he really feel freedom from his curse after so long coping and not coping with it? Could it be? He had to hope so._

_“Mm. Now think about who you’re looking for,” Conall said, sliding his palms up Bastion’s cheeks and into his hair to enter his mind._

_Auron cleared his mind and thought of nothing but Michael—his aura and presence. Michael’s voice, his eyes, his lips, that thing he always did with his hair, and Conall let go just in time for Auron to have the freedom to wonder why in the fuck he’d thought of Michael in such a...almost romantic way. ‘That doesn’t seem right,’ he thought to himself._

_“Alright, I’ll go look for him and bring him here. Whereabouts would you want me to put you two...assuming you’re both on this mission together,” Conall asked, standing and stretching out his wings before the imminent take-off._

_Auron was glad that he’d given the name ‘Bastion’ to Conall instead of a completely random one, otherwise Michael might have denied any affiliation and this never would have worked. He really hoped Michael wouldn’t say anything to Conall that could blow his cover if and when he was found, but he had to go out on a limb and trust Michael still had his proclivity for secrecy. Besides, just the fact that he’d be given the name ‘Bastion’ meant that he’d understand Auron gave it very intentionally._

_He realized he’d been silent for too long so he glanced up into Conall’s expectant eyes, keeping his smirk in his head as he laid out his blueprints; he knew Conall had an accent that screamed United Kingdom, so part of him wanted to go there for better chances of a reunion, but maybe this way, even if he never found him, he’d still find the people he was most passionate to see regardless. It happened to Alexander, after all. “America. Little Idahoan town called Fortwright.”_

 

_\---_

 

_“He said he’d be here,” Auron muttered, standing in the freezing cold over the plot of land in Palatine Hill he’d been buried in decades ago._

_“I just want my body back,” Michael whined, of course saying it from the female body he’d been reborn with in this life. Ever since he’d learned and remembered the truth alongside Auron when they’d found Conall, he’d insisted on male pronouns, and surprisingly, the society of the 2000’s hadn’t found that odd in the slightest._

_Speaking of 2000’s, neither thought they’d been in the otherworld for too long, but time was a different force there, and they’d somehow skipped the remainder of the 1970’s and all of the 80’s; which Michael was especially pissed off about, having heard the music from then, but he knew how to pick his battles._

_And yes, they had indeed found Conall. Auron and Michael had grown up as childhood friends, Jessica and Henry, and had shifted to lovers some time in high school, gone to the same college together, and taken an impulsive trip to England in 2013 to celebrate their five-year anniversary. And voilà. Conall. Fate was a real ass thing, no doubt about it._

_They’d been unapologetically educated on their identities and given an overwhelming dose of their old memories, and from studying the realm before going back into it, they’d already figured out where their bodies were, which was of course in Rome, so they’d ventured two weeks ago._

_The ridiculous part about this was the fact that it was 2018 right now. See, Conall had promised to meet them in Rome on this day during the month of March, in the year 2018, so here they were, closer to being thirty than their twenties. They hadn’t understood why they had to wait five years five years ago, and they still didn’t now, but hopefully their impatient suffering would soon be made up for._

_Standing under the full moon of March, 2018, waiting for the only creature to ever exist who could set them back to normal left a lot of room for disappointment if he didn’t show, but they had faith in him. He didn’t seem like the type to break deals and promises, especially not after how big and important an arrangement this had been._

_“Should we just...I don’t know, dig ourselves up while we wait?” Auron asked, scratching at his curly blonde hair and eyeing the ground beneath their feet._

_“I’m sure as fuck not doing that—these nails are not getting dirt under them,” Michael said with a burst of dedicated finality, inspecting his French manicure and huffing over the mere insinuation that he tarnish the perfection he’d paid good money for._

_“...Ever thought about staying a girl, Michael?” Auron deadpanned, staring at his lover with the very opposite of amusement on his features. “I might have forgotten I was technically gay until our vacation, but it’s not like I haven’t been fucking you and enjoying it for the last ten years of my life,” he reasoned, walking to the nearest and only thick tree in sight and leaning back against it._

_“Mmm...no, I’d rather get fucked a man, in his early twenties, thanks,” Michael stressed, preferring his old self to this one for multiple reasons. “Besides, I miss vampirism, and no offense, but you’re already my maker—I don’t need that freshly reinstalled just to give you the satisfaction,” he said, skipping over to where Auron stood and tucking himself into his chest. “Another besides,” he murmured, nearly purring when Auron wrapped his arms around him and kissed at his hair. “With these mounds on my chest, there’s always been something between us.”_

_“Pfft,” Auron spat, grinning as he squeezed Michael even tighter against him. “Yeah, what an issue,” he said sarcastically, feeling how cold his lover’s skin was and doing his best to warm him up with fast-paced strokes. “You could have at least brought your coat from the car.”_

_“You’re enough,” Michael said, rising up on his tiptoes and using gravity to keel over and crash their lips together._

_Auron chuckled through his nostrils and one hand went to Michael’s face on instinct, only just getting deeper in their kissing when they heard wing flaps and broke apart to search the sky. “About time.”_

_“Oh there!” Michael cried with a directed point, squinting his eyes through his unfortunately necessary glasses to keep the shadow locked in his sight and highly anticipating getting his old vision back._

_“Ahh,” Auron hummed, elated to have every inkling worry wash away in a moment’s time. “Let’s go,” he said, guiding Michael out to stand in the open and flag Conall down in case he couldn’t see them from his height in the air._

_That was actually proven a little pointless when Conall dove down before they could even leave the cover of the tree, but they still waltzed out to greet him anyway. “Good to see you.”_

_“Ahh, hello,” Conall said, having not aged a day all this time still, flapping his wings a few times before they disappeared from his back. “Sorry it had to be now—you wouldn’t get it even if I tried to explain,” he said, cracking most of the joints in his body and stifling a yawn._

_“Well, we’re here now and very much ready,” Auron said, constantly fighting his inclination to hop up and down on the balls of his feet like some excited puppy at the dinner table on Thanksgiving. A mere nanosecond after he’d said that, with a thundering clap of breakage noises, the earth just behind where they stood was launched into the air like a geyser, and both him and Michael jumped away like frightened animals, unable to do anything but watch in amazement as Conall relocated it all a few feet to the left._

_Conall breezed past the two humans and peered down into the plot, snorting to himself and then looking over his shoulder at their nervous faces. “You two are gonna need showers after this.”_

_“So we’re there?” Auron gasped, scrambling to his feet and dragging Michael along to the edge of the grave. He looked down and yelped at the sight of himself, never having thought he’d be so pleased to see a corpse. His corpse at that. Which, to be technical, looked exactly the same, but yes, he was dirt-caked three ways to Sunday._

_“This is surreal,” Michael said with a gulp, finally taking in every detail and pointing down to the center between their bodies. “Uh...we’re holding hands…” he said, cocking his head to the side and staring in bewilderment._

_“Huh…” Auron said dumbly, scratching behind his shoulder and then snorting when he realized why they would be. ‘Hayway, you sap,’ he thought to his faraway brother, shaking his head at the sentimentality Hadrian had always possessed sickening amounts of. It wouldn’t have been appreciated at the time, but he couldn’t deny it was now._

_“You ready?” Conall asked, cracking his knuckles once more (he seemed to have a habit of that) and taking deep breaths in preparation for what was probably a significantly difficult act to perform._

_“Very much so, yeah,” Michael said, rising from his kneeled crouch and grabbing Auron’s hand because it felt right to mirror the picture below them. “Goodbye, Henry.”_

_“Hmph. Bye, Jessica,” Auron replied with a smirk, closing his eyes and squeezing his lover’s hand as Conall slapped hands atop both their heads. Then shit it got really weird._

_With a groan of mighty, almost painful exertion, Conall ripped only the mental consciousnesses of Bastion and Michael from their bodies, sending their dormant souls straight back to the otherworld, and flew down to slam the disconnected minds into their vampiric heads (remembering of course to forever break apart and nullify Bastion’s insanity, plus heal their wounds), and crying out a bit at the burning in his palms as he did so._

_It took a few moments of nerve-racking resistance from the minds that didn’t feel obligated to enter corpses, but he won over them in the end, locking all thoughts and memories from the former humans into their old selves. Once he knew it had worked, he called upon the sparse clouds to congregate stir a flash storm above them, drenching their area in heavy rainfall to give his sort-of-friends that shower he’d suggested._

_He knew it would take a little bit for them to get everything sorted together within themselves, so he flew back out of the hole and turned his face skyward, running his hands through his soaked hair and letting the rain pelt on his cheeks. Only a matter of time now._

_Auron was technically aware of what had happened, but it was almost like he couldn’t fully access his muscles yet. He churned the increasing strength inside him, hoping to have it boil over and wake him up, but it was actually an external force to do it for him—rain. He felt his skin getting hit with rain, and the enlightening discovery that he could feel his skin at all lit up in his brain like a bomb, and as his eyes snapped open, a loud and very croaky gasp retreated down his throat._

_Michael’s comeback transpired in the same order and timespan, and they both shot up like activated mousetraps, clutching at their necks and dealing with the rushes of power their return to vampiric bodies was launching through their nerves and senses. It was quite the overwhelming contrast out of nowhere, much like their initial turnings had been, but it also felt like the best high ever._

_To explain their basis for comparison, the last five years had been filled with hard drug use, simply because they could and knew they wouldn’t always be able to, and though it may have been irresponsible, it was sure a wild time they’d never take back._

_“Holy shit,” Auron coughed, squinting in the rain to look up at the proud and smug Conall leaning over the grave with his hands on his knees. “You actually did it.”_

_“Conall, you God!” Michael cried amid the momentary chaos on his body, holding his hand above his face to block some of this brutal downpour. Conall seemed to take notice and as he walked around to the side of the grave, his wings came exploding from his back, stretching out to their full capacity to perfectly mimic the effective use of an umbrella. “What could we ever do to repay you?”_

_“Just swear to use this second chance to rectify what you said you would, and call me when that time comes,” Conall said with a shrug, having been happy enough to help, even if 70% of it had just been relishing in the chance to show off. Always fun to practice never-been-done-before power. “And by that I mean scream my name in unison toward the sky—I’ll hear you.”_

_“That’s...we will,” Auron promised instead of calling his savior creepy, dropping his gaze down to Michael in front of him and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Look at me.”_

_Michael turned around at once and stared deep into Auron’s eyes, drinking in the features of brown hair and green eyes he’d been accustomed to for so much longer than blonde and brown. Their love for each other eclipsed the attention they’d had on Conall and even the fact that they were sitting soaking wet in their own grave—the only things were each other._

_“Beautiful,” Auron whispered, smiling with the fangs he’d missed so very much and dashing forward to claim his wonderful Michael’s lips for the first time as their old selves. Michael responded with the passion he’d had their entire relationship, but the force of that passion was finally up to par with where they’d known it could be, and they were rolling around in the dirt within a second._

_“Ah,” Conall quipped with an awkward clearing of his throat, standing up straight and chuckling over their actions. “Suppose I should take my leave now.”_

_“Wait!” Auron said, detangling himself from Michael and leaping up to come face level with Conall, even only if just for a moment. He reached out with both hands and grabbed Conall’s face, kissing him hard on the lips and then falling back down into the six-foot-deep hole. “Thank you, Conall—for everything. I can’t possibly express my gratitude.”_

_“Yikes,” Conall laughed, wiping his lips and waving the last part of Bastion’s words away. “Don’t worry about it, I think you just did.”_

_“You’ll really hear us if we call?” Michael asked, standing side-by-side with his everything so close their sides could have been glued together._

_“Well, fate isn’t done with us yet, so even if I don’t, I’ll still be there,” Conall said with a wink, shaking his wings like a dog might to get water off its fur. “Fair winds. This shower will stop when I’m a mile away, so use it well before you go waltzing into civilization,” he said, giving a big flap to hover a foot above ground. “You’ll wanna move, though, for I intend to put your human bodies in here and fill it back up.”_

_“Ah, okay,” Auron said, taking Michael’s hand and leaping up to ground level with him. Once they were out of the way, Conall levitated Henry and Jessica and floated them down to replace the spots they’d previously left._

_“This is...equally surreal from the other side,” Michael said, looking down this time at his other other self and waving goodbye to the body he truthfully wouldn’t miss one bit. The dirt Conall had launched up before was this time pelted back down by him so hard, and so exactly, that the grave looked entirely untouched, and now the time for goodbye really had come. “Have a…safe flight,” he said, wondering if that was indeed the thing to say in this situation._

_“Aha, yeah, I’ll watch out for that turbulence,” Conall snorted, taking off with those words and only sparing a few waves before never looking back._

_“Michael,” Auron said, watching Conall’s receding form until he could no longer be seen and then stepping in front of Michael to demand his attention._

_“Yes,” Michael said simply, grasping Auron’s forearms when his elbows were clutched to really show he was listening._

_“I know we’ve talked about this...how you loved me the whole time we were being power-hungry shitheads...and in turn, I know I’ve already said this too...but I’m really sorry for never seeing you before. I know now you had the ability all along to fill a void in me, and I should have—”_

_“Auron, you were insane back then,” Michael reminded, holding Auron’s face and brushing their noses together. “Setting aside the fact that I was deathly attracted to your unhinged instability, you had a void in you that only Conall could fill,” he asserted, smiling bashfully when Auron gave him his signature eyebrow raise with his actual eyebrow._

_“Maybe so, but we could have had great sex,” Auron said, groping at Michael’s ass when he busted out in laughter to conflict his annoying amusement._

_“Ah, alright, I agree,” Michael choked, wrapping his hands around Auron’s neck and pushing their hips together._

_“Alright,” Auron deadpanned, stepping away and holding his hand out for Michael to take. “We’re gonna go find ourselves a cow, drink said cow, then find a bed, and fuck until sunrise. And then, when we wake up tomorrow night, we’re sprinting to Idaho.”_

_Michael grinned and nodded to accept that plan, only holding Auron’s hand for a instant before pulling back. “Race you to the cow.”_

 

***

 

“That’s basically how that went down,” Auron finished, still toying with Michael’s upper leg with the backs of his fingers under the knee hole in his jeans. He’d obviously left out most of the details regarding what had happened, but he’d hit enough bulletpoints to tell the tale.

Harry had remained silent the whole time, but now that his twin was done, he immediately dove into the thing that had sent chills down his spine when he’d heard it. “You said ‘winged dude,’ right?” he asked, hanging on Auron’s response in case he’d imagined it.

“Yeah, crazy, huh? I swear I’m not lying,” Auron said, realizing with a grimace it was a tad on the fantastic side and not entirely credible.

Harry stayed frozen for a few more weighted seconds and then blew a sigh past his lips, falling heavily back into the couch and sharing a loaded and knowing look with Louis before meeting his twin’s eyes again. “It was Conall, wasn’t it,” he said, not bothering to phrase it as a question because he was the only bloody creature it could be.

“It—wha—how’d you know?” Auron asked in shock, removing his hand from Michael’s ripped jeans and pointing at his twin with a silent request to explain himself.

“For fuck’s sake!” Harry snapped, covering his eyes and shaking his head. “This fate thing is too fucking real,” he muffled through his hands, dragging them down his cheeks and slapping them on his thighs.

“You’re telling me,” Auron agreed, laughing brightly over the fact that Hadrian had met the winged Conall as well at some point. “Guy has a boner for the very word fate.”

“He acted like he knew me when we met seven years ago...I thought it was the weirdest fucking thing at the time, and he was so cryptic and—fuck, I never would have guessed. I really should have, shouldn’t I, but it’s hard to think of anything else when you’re invited to float in the sky with him. Good fucking goodness…” he said, feeling crushed under the pressure of just how perfectly all these dots had fallen into place to make right now a thing.

“I have several words on the topic as well, but for now I think the only thing I’m wondering is what your point to all of this is. You bent the rules of everything to get back here, and now you’re here, and I want to know why,” Louis said, not finding the presence (not to mention existence) of Auron as foreboding as he did twenty minutes ago, but still all ears on the aspect of _why_.

“The why is the simplest part,” Auron said, leaning back and draping his arm around Michael, who happily snuggled into his side. He caught the genuinely happy smile from Louis directed at Michael, and he was pleased by it. He’d been brought up to speed on their friendship after they’d regained their memories, and though it had pissed him off initially, even he’d known how immature a reaction that was. He had Michael’s love, that was all that mattered.

“Oh good, then out with it,” Louis snorted, taking note of how calmly and unstrained he’d joked with Auron and looking around to assess everyone else’s states of mind. Harry was an open book of heavy emotion and hunger for knowledge, but it was good to see Martin and Tanner had relaxed too and were now only regarding Auron and Michael with fascination. _Weird fucking day this is._

“I did a lot of regretful things as Auron last time; some of which I don’t feel like admitting to and apologizing for, and some I know full well that I have to...and plan to,” Auron began, nervously playing with his hair under the hot microscope of accountability. Michael’s gentle touches helped, but this still felt awful.

“I’d certainly like a written letter for some to tack on my wall,” Louis muttered, thankfully breaking a bit of the tension as Auron quietly chuckled at his words.

“I’ll get on that,” Auron said, steering himself right back on track before he let himself stray any further away. “Considering what I’ve done, or at least been on the receiving end of, like getting back to this realm inside my old body and shit, would could I offer you? Think about it. What could I possibly regret most that is relevant to you and at the same time have the power to reverse?” he asked, giving his company plenty of time to think it over before he had to face voicing the explanation.

“...You can’t possibly mean…” Tanner said, causing all heads to turn to him in shock of his fast theorizing because no one else was even close to understanding. “How do you even know they’d want to?” he asked, his lips parted and eyes wide as he blinked repeatedly at someone he never would have expected such a deed from. This was not the same Auron that tortured him and Martin in a dungeon cell.

“Because Conall asked them personally, and they said ‘sure, we’re bored enough’,” Auron recited, nearly flinching from the butler’s boyfriend’s sharp barks of laughter.

“You could and _do_ possibly mean!” Tanner cried, happy tears streaming down his face in waves that probably wouldn’t be stopping any time soon. “It is true.” It had to be. Those were verbatim words of exactly what they would say, and he had never been more sure of anything in his life.

“I’m still...a bit…” Martin said, practically flexing his brain as he went through the list of—wait. “You can’t be serious…” he said, finally connecting the dots of why it affected Tanner so heavily; what that meant for Auron’s allusion.

“Now would be a good time to fill me in,” Louis said, having come to one conclusion and instantly subsided it on account of his natural abstinence from wishful thinking. With that out of the way, he wanted the facts immediately.

“Fucking think about it, Louis!” Tanner sobbed, wiping at his face uselessly because extra tears only replaced any dry spot he managed to create. “Who the fuck would have died and said they’re ‘bored enough’ to leave the otherworld and come back?”

“If you’d do that, I’d literally let you take over the world again,” Harry said without hesitation, catching Louis whip around to glare him down in his peripherals. “What?” he asked defensively, daring Louis to come up with another subject that better fit that attitude.

“So we’re all thinking the same thing? Well, stop it. Don’t get my fucking hopes up,” Louis snarled, standing to his full short height and stepping on top of the coffee table to look down on Auron like he really hadn’t ever been able to before. Damn this height of mine. “You said _they_ —describe them.”

“Marley, the ever so Aussie blondie, whom I killed with a gun in Russia, and his Swedish punk-before-punk-was-a-thing boyfriend, Erakus, whom I learned died shortly thereafter,” Auron said surely, breaking eye contact for just a second to lean over and address Hadrian. “And believe me, world domination is so four-ish decades ago.”

“You’d bring them back?” Louis asked, dropping down and nearly straddling Auron’s legs by how close he came and gripping his shoulders like they were two bony stress balls.

“I _will_ bring them back. I just need to be where they are buried, scream to the sky for a bit…” he said, shaking his head over how ridiculous that sounded even to him, “...and then they, who gave consent to coming back, will be back. And that blood will be off my hands at the _very_ least. Let me do this, please, I need to if I ever have a chance at coping with this—coping with myself and who I used to be.”

“And we’ll let you,” Louis said, searching the eyes of everyone who wasn’t Michael or Auron, “won’t we?”

“I won’t stop you,” Martin said, holding Tanner tighter when he vigorously nodded to give his opinion.

“Auree, you really are back,” Harry breathed with a sniff, jogging over to the couch and fitting his top half down between him and Louis to crush him in a hug. “I love you, Auree. I always loved you.”

“Hayway, Zeus,” Auron groaned, accepting the hug because even as a crazed maniac, his twin had always been the one to reach that soft spot within him. Hadrian made him care, made him feel things like love and affection, and he’d saved him there at the end, even with the lure. Would Auron have given his life up had he not spent all that quality time with his twin? Who knows? Maybe Hadrian gave Michael to him in conclusion, and he certainly couldn’t repay that, but he could start with this.

That hug ended up setting off a chain reaction of hugs, and Michael and Louis were the next takers of the act, bringing in the other two and before long, it was an unanticipated but comfortable group hug between the six of them. Tears shed and smiles gleamed, but after about a minute, Louis disconnected himself and clapped his hands together to command the room.

“I think Zayn and Niall, not to mention Jenner and Harlock, and everyone in the Lockhart household, also Liam and Johnny and everyone in England, and definitely the Sparrows and all of Tahoe need to know about this,” Louis said, pointing his thumb at the phone in the kitchen while he stroked at his chin.

“Yeah, go call them,” Harry encouraged, his arm stuck around Auron’s waist where it would stay until Louis wanted the arm instead...or Michael wanted the waist.

“But who do I call first?” Louis asked, already taking steps backward to travel down the hall but not yet leaving until he got an answer.

“The ones who can get here first. Zayn and Niall,” Harry said, waving Louis off because he was now anxiously awaiting the thrill of delivering this earth-shatteringly joyous news.

“Alright, alright,” Louis said with a lot of nods in quick succession, darting toward the kitchen and picking up the receiver of that old antique phone they’d never disposed of. It just felt right.  

“Mother would be proud, Auron,” Harry said to his mirror image, catching the sudden gleam in his eyes and preemptively stroking a thumb over his closest cheekbone. “She would.”

“I have a feeling from here on out, that Mom’s name is going to be Stacey anyhow,” Martin laughed, causing Harry to snap his fingers like he was jamming to an especially fast-paced song.

“You’re damn right—once she gets a good face slap in, I have a feeling she’ll forgive you,” Harry said to his brother, playfully fluffing his hair up because for once, one time in a very, _very_ long time, it made sense to.

“I wouldn’t bet on anyone forgiving me—I just want to do this one thing, and I can disappear,” Auron said with a sad smile, having built up the opposite of positive expectations surrounding how his restoring plan would be received by those close to his brother.

“Guess we’ll see—maybe you’ll just have to get slapped by everyone,” Harry snorted, smiling at the impromptu sudden kiss on the cheek Auron gave. “They won’t trust you at first at all, but with time they’ll see the difference in you. Then maybe forgiveness can come later.”

“I’d withstand just about anything for forgiveness. And to be honest, it’s actually closer to everything than any,” Auron sighed, finally taking his seat and pulling Michael into his lap now that the hardest part of his plan had gone smoothly. And yes, this was without a doubt the hardest part. It was all going to be okay now—he had Michael, he had his brother, and he was a real brother again. _Conall, you motherfucking God._

“Hello, Niall?” Louis snapped, peeved that Niall had taken so bloody long to answer the phone, but by the harsh breathing coming through the phone he knew why.

“What’s crackin’, best friend of mine?” Niall wheezed, making Louis question whether or not they’d actually _stopped_ to answer the phone. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if they hadn’t.

“Uh...well...you see, this uh...the situation is...okay, there’s…” Louis floundered, grasping for words he couldn’t even fathom getting out in a concise and comprehensible way. He held his hand over the mouthpiece (as if that would do anything) and leaned away to shout down the hallway, asking the question he so very much needed the answer for since his wild, ludicrous, and iconically unpredictable life had put him in yet another impossible situation to maneuver by himself...but what else is new? “Guys? How in the _FUCK_ do I explain this one?!”

 

∞

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL i went SO overboard with Conall but come on. a hot guy with wings? Yes fucking please, says this boy.  
> alright.  
> So yeah, basically I'm tired. LOL. And life is just horrid in physical ways I never would have anticipated three years ago. I'm sorry to those whom I've disappointed for all this waiting, and at some point in your future, if you truly care, you'll get the fourth book, which is the prequel (you'd be amazed how many I've been asked what the fourth is even though i've said it so many times), but again, I cannot MAKE myself—you could not PAY me—in no realm is that possible in the very near future. is essentially what i'm saying. You're more than welcome to come visit me on tumblr any time, my inbox is always open, it's been a fucking blast, i love you all, GOODBYE.  
> -Jax out until further notice. 
> 
> Oh and yeah, of course Marley and Erakus were brought back. It was an emotional night in Tahoe, and the family is whole again. The bus squad.  
> It did indeed take a while for people to forgive Auron, but they learned to (after they learned to trust him and Michael), and he was a part of them from then on out. And Conall is chillin. It's all fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE. FOR ONCE. IN LOVE ENDLESS HISTORY. EVERYTHING IS OKAY.  
> The end.
> 
> update: literally started the fourth book last night smh im impossible.

**Author's Note:**

> wubwubnparmaham.tumblr.com


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